Ghosts of Amaranthine
by Philosophizes
Summary: There's nothing quite like being left out to dry by the rest of the Grey to clean up a Blight that only hurt the official backwater of Thedas and then misplacing Warden-Commander Mahariel, Hero of Ferelden, Arl of Amaranthine, Champion of Redcliffe, Arla'lanelan, to really do a number on everyone involved. If only he'd stay in one place long enough to be found and dragged back.
1. Chapter 1

Kirkwall was carved out of the uniform dirty white limestone that made up the soaring coastal cliffs of the Free Marches, and might have looked nice if the stone hadn't been stained with centuries of smoke and sewage. Kirkwall Hightown, far above them on top of the cliffs the rest of the city was carved out of, might _actually_ have been white, but the sun was in his eyes and he couldn't tell.

 _Who takes the time to polish the green off all those Imperium bronze giants on the harbor approach, but can't be bothered to scrub the walls with seawater?_

A city where the statues of weeping slaves still held some meaning, of course. This was never stopped being the City of Chains. Chains of iron, chains of gold, literal and metaphorical- it didn't matter. This was the pressing atmosphere of a place no one could escape and where bribery and violence and fear ruled.

He was glad that they were only here until they found their ship.

The wind shifted, coming more westerly than southerly, and Alistair's nose wrinkled at the faint glittering blue-snap-spark smell of lyrium from the Gallows. Kinloch Hold had never smelled of it, or her younger sister-Circle Jainen on the coast of the Waking Sea. That he could find it at all on the wind, even with the ever-sharp sensitivity of a no-longer-using addict, said very bad things about Kirkwall's Templars.

Speaking of chains.

 _The two Orders you can never quit- Templars and Wardens. Lucky me, I got to join both._

It was always a toss-up which had more of a chance of killing a Templar or Templar trainee Warden recruit- the Joining, or trying to break the lyrium addiction. He'd survived both, and that was pure luck.

Sometimes it seemed that was all his life was- one long string of being lucky to be alive. Lucky to be born the king's bastard, lucky to leave Redcliffe with nothing but bad memories, lucky to survive going lyrium sober, lucky to survive the Joining, lucky to survive Ostagar and the Blight and the Archdemon-

"Ach, the _humanity._ "

He was going to be lucky to make it back to Vigil's Keep without _murdering_ anyone.

On the journey to Weisshaupt, Alistair had been overwhelmed by the thought of the First Warden. He'd assumed that the leader of all the Grey Wardens in the world would be something like Duncan, one of the best men he'd ever meet. The thought of it had sustained him the whole way through the Tevinter Imperium.

Well, that; and the way Theron would just look grave and understanding if he went back to Ferelden after making something up about snowed-in mountain passes or dastardly blood magisters or daring escapes from slavers or-

The look just wouldn't have been worth it, so he'd grit his teeth and put up with the Imperium, and then manfully and virtuously restrained himself from punching the First Warden in the face when he finally met the man.

He'd been no better than the petty nobles in Denerim! He was caught up in local politics in the fiercely- well, everything, Ander did everything fiercely, but _most_ of all it was fiercely petty- political games in Hossberg!

There were somewhere around fifteen hundred Grey Wardens in the Anderfels, those stationed at Weisshaupt had told him proudly, to deal with the constant threat of darkspawn the area suffered. Those Wardens originally from Orlais had had no qualms about additionally informing him that _Orlais_ was important enough to never have less than seven hundred at a time.

Alistair had remembered how hard Duncan had worked to get the mere hundred or so Ferelden had managed to gather at Ostagar, and the friends and favors it was rumored he'd had to call in to add the thirty or so foreign Wardens to field, and had manfully and virtuously restrained himself from kicking the shit out of these smug bastards who had never seen a Blight. He'd seen more darkspawn in a year than any of them would see until their Callings took them to the Deep Roads!

There had been three things working against him in Weisshaupt, for all his status as a survivor of the Blight, and he glumly counted them again as he waited for Leonie and Nelle to report back.

One, he was a bastard. Royal bastard, sure. But bastards got no respect.

Two, he wasn't really old enough to be a Warden. He was young by seniority standards _and_ by actual chronological age. The Wardens, for preference, he learned at Weisshaupt, recruited in the twenty-seven to thirty-two range, selecting for prior field experience and leadership- mages excepted, who were recruited young and sparingly, traditionally one per Circle. It was a mark of both Duncan's desperation and his personal views as part Rivaini and Tevene that most of his recruits in the time leading up to Ostagar had been relatively young, inexperienced, and socially despised.

Three, he was Ferelden. Enough said.

"As so, humanity," one of the other Wardens he'd been allowed agreed with the first to speak.

They were a sorry bunch, and that was saying something, because Alistair _knew_ how low his standards were. He'd lived through the Blight with a witch, a mabari, a Chantry sister, a sixty-something dying healer, a drunk dwarf, a magical hunk of rock that had _actually_ ignored darkspawn in favor of fighting birds, and a turncoat assassin.

The Wardens at Weisshaupt had been completely appalled when, during his month-long stay, he'd been obligated to tell the story of the Fifth Blight for the archives. The only thing he'd lied about was omitting Morrigan's mysterious ritual, and crediting Warden Riordan with landing the killing blow, since he _had_ conveniently died fighting the Archdemon. He really hadn't wanted to explain that they'd agreed to use the magic of a Witch of the Wilds to avoid dying to the fiercely pious Ander. Ferelden knew the truth, and it would go in their national records and the ones the Wardens kept at Vigil's Keep. History would show he lied, but he hoped people would realize why.

Once the slightly-altered true story had gotten around, he'd had to endure a lot of comments about the fact that there had only been _two_ Wardens in the entire country for _months,_ and that they'd tried to handle the Blight all on their own, the two of them just barely past their Joinings, and taken people they'd just happened across on the road as their assistance instead of trying to get some _real_ Wardens.

But Alistair was ready to trudge back up that blighted mountain with the dragon on it to swear by the Maker on Andraste's Urn of Sacred Ashes itself that the First Warden and the others at Weisshaupt hadn't cared one sodding bit that he'd come on Theron's request- _as a Commander of the Grey,_ which was supposed to _mean_ something- to get more Wardens than the dozen the Orlesian Commander had sent as a sort of apology for not being any _actual_ help during the Blight, and instead had used him and Ferelden as a convenient dumping ground for a bunch of people no one else wanted.

Presumably the First Warden had decided that some waffly Orlesians and a bunch of wild heathen barbarians from beyond the Wandering Hills wouldn't tread on the Fereldans' tender sensibilities because everyone knew Fereldans didn't _have_ any manners to offend.

Alistair didn't know which group he disliked more. The Orlesians were, well, _Orlesian,_ and reminded him unpleasantly of Arlessa Isolde. Leonie and Nelle were okay people, but they weren't really suited for this job. Leonie at least had the excuse that her brother was also a Warden- though Gerod was maybe the least likable one Alistair had ever met, thank the Maker the First Warden had sent him ahead through Orlais to requisition more of their Wardens for Ferelden.

The wild heathen barbarians all came from the coastlands of the Volca Sea north of the Wandering Hills, up in the Feral Fjords, and Alistair wasn't sure _why_ any of them were Wardens in the first place. He'd heard one of them, Lockhard, actually pay lip service to the Maker and Andraste to a Chantry sister's face, but Lockhard was an Ander who'd defected to the heathens, so he had the force of habit to contend with. There were seven others, six men and a woman, who so far had taken their superstitions more seriously than anything else and seemed to pray to the Old Gods.

He thought that was what they were doing, anyway. They prayed in their own language, to stylized wooden idols of humanish horned figures with dragons at their feet, which meant nothing to him but were carefully wrapped in the finest Tevinter silk brocade when not in use, and the only word he'd caught clearly from their secretive services was _'Duma'_ \- Dumat, clearly, the Dragon of Silence and the first Archdemon.

Hopefully they'd stop. He'd had his lifetime's fill of weird religious dragon cults in Haven, thank you very much.

At least the Orlesians would pray contemplating the campfire or a ship's lantern like _normal_ people.

The woman, Mhequi, made some comment to her fellows, and Andreas laughed. He was the one who'd made the first humanity comment, and Alistair was inclined to be annoyed about it, out of spite. The wind hadn't shifted, and he could still smell lyrium- it was even stronger, now, and he was getting a headache.

He tried focusing on the docks instead.

They were mostly full of sailors and longshoremen at the moment, but there was a scattering of trinket peddlers and prostitutes and clumps of scowling mercenaries, better armed and armored than anyone else but his own group of Wardens.

Oh, and yes, there were the shady suspicious types! Here in Kirkwall they were probably smugglers and potion-dealers, but one or two of them could be outright thus, maybe even a few thieves taking a break in no-theft territory.

At least docks were the traditional no-theft territory in Ferelden. The longshoremen were very territorial, and sailors got touchy about having their shore leave cut short by having their coin stolen.

Alistair took a deep breath, tyring to use the funk of city streets and the docks' tar and fish and brine to mask the lyrium stench from the Gallows, but it only got sharper- clearer. Closer.

He locked up on reflex, conditioning from the months of being forced off the lyrium taking over, and stopped breathing. He kept not breathing right through getting lightheaded and his vision swimming.

Eventually, he blacked out, and came to half-standing a minute or so later, wild heathen barbarians holding up by the arms on both sides and another bracing his back.

"Constable?" Andreas, on his left, asked.

"There's-" Alistair wheezed, and immediately regretted it. They lyrium was still there, now joined by a different, similar, still-familiar smell of sparking coppery dust.

Oh what a _great_ place Kirkwall was, there was an apostate around here too! And the lyrium in the Gallows was strong enough that merely the _smell_ of it was reactivating some of his Templar abilities!

He was going to be sick over the side of the boat for _days,_ and would probably still be shivering and twitching at odd moments when they put port in Amaranthine.

Jonas, on his right, said something to the others in their language, and Rhannur Nastasa and Ragnar Disar peeled off. There were only four of the barbarians who had surnames, excluding the formerly-Ander Lockhard, and Alistair still hadn't figured out why Ragnar, Rhannur, and Andreas's were Tevene. The wild heathen barbarians were all as fluent- if not moreso- in Tevene than in Ander, which made absolutely no sense to him; and certainly they were better at either than the common Thedan trade tongue native to the Marches and a cousin to Ferelden. He had no idea what the wild heathen barbarians hoped to accomplish when they wouldn't be able to speak to anyone on the docks. That was why he'd sent Leonie and Nelle to ask about the ship to Amaranthine.

But it looked like he'd underestimated the presence of Tevenes in Kirkwall. He watched as Rhannur approached a nervous-looking young woman and said something that made her startle; and Ragnar caused a ruckus around one of the shady-looking characters until the longshoremen got involved, and then slipped away.

"Lyrium trader," he said upon returning, and the others nodded sagely. One of Rangar's pockets was bulging.

"That's illegal," Alistair mumbled, still trying not to breath.

"Tied well, Constable," Ragnar told him. "No fear."

Doubtful, Alistair tried, and found that the only lyrium he could smell was from the Gallows. And the wind was shifting again, finally.

Rhannur ambled back.

"Lyrium?" he asked Ragnar.

"Lyrium."

He grunted.

"As so thought."

"How did you _know?_ " Alistair asked.

Fjerdi shrugged. Mhequi and Jonas exchanged a look. Rhannur and Ragnar fidgeted slightly in place. Andreas cleared his throat.

It was Torin, still supporting him from behind, who spoke up.

"Clear," he said. "Have cousins who are strange near Tevene traders. Lyrium sensitivity not to lark over."

"Lyrium… sensitivity?"

He'd never heard of such a thing.

"Not know about that here?" Torin asked. " _Ach!_ Can kill you."

"If have it much strong sorcerer can do it," Rhannur said. "Looked. Not her. As so thought."

"You _knew_ she was an apostate?"

"As so I did. Smelled her, yes?"

"Wait, how can you-"

"Half my family smells as she," Mhequi told him.

"Much of my hold," Fjerdi added.

"Both my parents," Jonas said, his tone a mixture of pride and shame. The others made sympathizing noises.

"Duma's luck, Jonas, Duma's luck," Andreas said, shaking his head sadly.

"You could _all_ smell that?" Alistair asked, shocked.

"Are Voshai," Torin said, like it was supposed to explain everything.

"What?"

"Are Voshai," he repeated. "As you're Fereldan. Voshai smell magic."

"What, really?"

"Voshai sailed to Laysh," Andreas said with a shrug. "Smelled magic. Heard lyrium song. Much sailed home. We stayed. Found Tevene, trade for more lyrium. Some born now have lyrium sensitivity, smell too strong, hear too strong. Can die."

"It's not a _'sensitivity'_ ," Alistair told him, and took a deep breath of lyrium-free air. Kirkwall didn't smell half so nice without the Gallows for comparison. "Just… keep that away from me. And get rid of it, it's illegal!"

Ragnar's expression fell.

"But is best offering!"

"How to keep demons away not having it?" Rhannur demanded.

"Could grow medicine plants!" Torin exclaimed. " _Have_ to keep it!"

Mhequi looked a bit bemused.

"Are not going to smoke it?" she asked.

It made Alistair feel a lot better that the other Voshai seemed just as taken aback by that comment as he was.

"Why do that?" Jonas asked, puzzled.

"Is how is done at _my_ hold," she said. "How at yours?"

Apparently, the information was too technical or too secret to say in Thedan Trader, because they all switched back to their own language.

And now he was left out of the conversation. Again.

* * *

There were no ships to Amaranthine.

 _There were no ships to Amaranthine._

"There can't just _not be ships_ to _Amaranthine!_ " Alistair exclaimed in frustration, and Leonie cringed back a bit. "It's the most important port in Ferelden!"

"The Harbormaster said-"

"Well then he had to have been wrong!"

"He's the _Harbormaster-_ "

Nelle mumbled something.

"What?" Alistair demanded. "What was that, Warden? Speak up!"

"Th-there aren't any ships to Amaranthine b-because Amaranthine _burned._ "

"It _what?_ "

"The Harbormaster said!" Leonie burst out. "He did! It got attacked by an army of darkspawn and the Warden-Commander got there too late with the arling's soldiers and there was no one left and they burned it and marched back to Vigil's Keep and fought _another_ army!"

But they had _just_ killed the Archdemon!

"How long ago?"

"Five months?"

It took a month to sail from Denerim to Cumberland and about another month and a half overland from Cumberland to Weisshaupt. He'd been a month in Weisshaupt, and then it had been another two and a half months to get back here-

He had been in Cumberland five months ago! He should have turned around and-

Alistair had the sudden realization that it had been almost a full year since the Archdemon had been killed. It had taken six months for the First Warden to confirm that Theron would be Commander of the Grey in Ferelden and send word that they were sending resources to help rebuild the Wardens' presence. He and Theron had spent those six months stumping for recruits amongst the Ferelden knights and the stragglers of the other armies after the rest of their companions had left.

Well, Zevran and Shale had stayed, because neither of them had anywhere else to go. Zevran had worried over his unfinished business with the Crows for two months until Theron had somehow convinced him that it was okay for him to leave, so long as he promised to be safe and come back. Alistair had no idea how assassinating assassins was supposed to count as _'being safe'_ , but really, that was between Theron and Zevran.

By the time the assassin had left for Antiva City, Shale had already been sent on to Soldier's Peak. The golem had been taking out it's avian vendetta on Denerim's pigeons, and Theron had had to ask it to leave to preserve the meat staple of Denerim's poor. No one would care if Shale went around crushing birds in the mountains.

Maybe he should stop by Soldier's Peak and ask Shale to come back. Or maybe not- he was a little scared of Shale. He hadn't known the golem that long.

More importantly, they needed to find a ship to Highever- no, Highever had been burned, too, when Rendon Howe had gotten delusions of grandeur. Denerim was taking forever to rebuild and that was with the royal treasury behind it, Highever wouldn't be finished yet, if reconstruction had even _started._

And now Amaranthine had burned. Where in Andraste's name were the trade ships supposed to dock?

Maybe there were ships to Jainen or West Hill.

This time Alistair went out to ask about ships himself. It took a while, but he eventually found a small boat that was going home to West Hill, and paid their passage on it.

True to his suspicions, he was sick over the side of the boat all three days at sea, getting rid of the aftereffects of the Gallows. But he didn't get the shivers and never twitched, which improved his mood slightly.

Even better for his mood was the feeling of getting off the ship in West Hill and seeing good, proper weathered wood houses- the better ones half-timbered with plaster- lining dirt streets with deep ruts you could turn your ankle in and little puddles of filthy water, cold and unpleasant under a weak sun.

Gray, brown, muddy, overcast, smelled like wet dogs and sheep- there really was nothing like being home.

"Ugh," said Nelle.

Stupid pampered Orlesians.

"No rock," Fjerdi said, sounding lost and sad.

Jonas made a scathing noise and gestured broadly at West Hill.

" _Fire,"_ he pronounced ominously.

"Yes, yes," Alistair said, in too good a mood to be put out by the other Wardens' opinions. "It's boring and bland and bleak and you'll be depressed in no time, but it'll be _fun!_ "


	2. Chapter 2

They bought horses in West Hill and took the North Road east. The nice thing about being on Warden business _without_ a price on your head was that you could do things like ride horses, and take the major roads, and stay in inns. It was five days until the crossroads with the Pilgrim's Path, where Alistair decided to stop for the day.

He walked into one of the nicer inns with Leonie and Andreas, and the bartender-proprietor leaned over his counter and spat on the floor when he saw them.

" _More_ of ye?" he growled "Had enough of ye two weeks ago!"

Never mind, this was _just_ like being on Warden business with a price on his head.

"What, did they kick your dogs?" Alistair shot back.

"'Ere now," the bartender said, brightening up. "You're no Orlesian! You're a good honest Fereldan!"

Orlesians- Leonie's brother must have beaten them to Vigil's Keep with his people. Which meant they probably _had_ kicked the inn's dogs. Foreigners just didn't respect mabari.

"Pardon!" Leonie protested, putting her Orlesian accent on more than was really necessary in Alistair's opinion.

"Oh, I'm sorry, _milady,_ " the bartender said without an ounce of respect or sincerity.

"There are eleven of us," Alistair told him. "We need rooms and food for the night and stable space for our horses."

"Hm," the bartender grunted, considering. "They all Orlesians?"

"Only two," he assured the man. "This one and another woman. The rest are chantless Voshai barbarians."

The bartender certainly didn't know what _'Voshai'_ were- Alistair hadn't until just recently- but anyone was a sight better than Orlesians right now. Loghain's war had stirred up old prejudices, even if his particular paranoia had been unfounded, and it meant that right now there were parts of Ferelden where Chasind and Dalish were more welcome than Orlesians.

Apparently the Arling of Amaranthine was one of them. Alistair supposed he shouldn't be surprised, given the way that Rendon Howe had thrown himself into Loghain's service. It was even, in its way, _good_ news- everyone had been a little nervous about having a Dalish noble, even if he was also a Warden and had saved the whole country, but in this case prejudice would give him a head start.

"Had our fill of Orlesians," the bartender confided to Alistair when he brought the food to his room. Nelle and Leonie were sharing a room at the end of the hall, and the Voshai had insisted on taking the big caravan room as a group. It was probably something about their clans or holds or however they lived back home.

Orlesians and Voshai both, though, had insisted that Alistair have his own room.

"You are Constable of the Grey in Ferelden!" Leonie had insisted. It was one of the few things she was stubborn on. "You are our commanding officer! You _must_ have your own room!"

Alistair had given up on insisting that he _wasn't_ a Warden Constable, Theron had never actually appointed a second-in-command, some time ago. He'd just let it go, and taken the room. Privacy was nice.

"Mind, we're still upset about the Burning of Amaranthine," the bartender continued. It didn't seem like he was planning on leaving until he'd said what he thought. "But even the hardheads who kept saying it was part of a plot to hand us all over to the elves shut up when Howe's son went around reminding them that Amaranthine's never _had_ an alienage and the queen gave Ostagar to the wild ones. Rest of us realized the Arl-Commander had the right idea when we thought about what a city's worth of darkspawn to add to the hordes already here would have been like.

"You're still having problems with the darkspawn?" Alistair asked. He hadn't seen any recent signs, but that just meant they weren't venturing near the roads.

"All gone now," he was assured. "Scurried back to their holes after they got smashed at Vigil's Keep. The Arl-Commander spent good money on fixing those walls, and now we've got reason to be grateful besides the jobs it gave the farmers whose lands the soldiers couldn't protect. The Arl-Commander did a good job with what he was handed, is my thoughts."

"Well, I'll tell him so when I see him."

The bartender perked up.

"Oh, so ye know where he is, then? We figured Wardens would know Wardens' business, but the ones at the Vigil won't say."

"Wait, The- Warden-Commander Mahariel isn't at Vigil's Keep?"

"He went off chasing the darkspawn. Wardens he took with him came back, but he didn't. They said he ain't dead, and-"

The bartender shrugged.

"Well, why lie?"

There was a definite _'he killed an Archdemon, no regular darkspawn could ever touch him'_ to that assessment, but Alistair barely registered it. Theron was _gone?_

"Who's in _charge,_ then?" he asked, visions of Shale smashing Orlesians over the head and insulting everyone running through his head.

"They say it's running by committee," the bartender said. "Them Orlesians and all those knights from before died the first time the Keep was attacked-"

It had been attacked more than _once?_ And Theron had had to deal with the darkspawn _alone?_

No, wait, he'd taken Wardens with him. But then who-

Oh no. He'd _recruited._ Theron's standards for _'acceptable help'_ were a lot like Duncan's had been, the rest of the Wardens were going to throw a _fit_ when they had to register them with Weisshaupt.

"-so it's the new Wardens the Arl-Commander picked up from when he was going around saving farms and tracking down the hordes, and that Mistress Woolsey who came with the first Orlesians, and Captain Garavel of Vigil's Keep. Mind, it could be worse. Howe's son signed on, and he's been holding it together in front of the banns and the others who don't trust all them foreigners and dwarves up there."

The sooner he got to Vigil's Keep, the better.

* * *

Zevran was standing by the side of the approach to the Wardens' new Fereldan headquarters, waiting for them. He wasn't wearing his old Crow armor, but the blue and white quilting Alistair had been introduced to at Weisshaupt along with so many other things. The quilting was paired with the rogue's variation of minimal plate and long leather gloves, and the Wardens' silver griffin glinted on his right shoulder. The tips of its wings were hidden by the blue hood Zevran had left down.

Alistair pulled his horse up and stared.

"You _didn't_ ," he said. " _He_ didn't. You swore up and down you'd never join the Wardens!"

"It is a grand joke, no?" Zevran said, uncharacteristically sour. "This new Warden, this Caron, he says that Vigil's Keep is for Wardens and only Wardens may stay there. So- I must be a Warden, since there are rooms set aside for me. Such is life."

"That's _Gerod_ Caron, isn't it?" Alistair asked, resigned to the truth.

"I see you have met him."

Leonie said something quietly in Orlesian. It sounded hopeless to Alistair.

Zevran sniffed.

"He is calling himself _'Commander'_ ," he said.

"But he's not!" Alistair protested. "I mean- unless-"

"We have not heard from Theron since the Dragonbone Wastes."

This was nothing to speak of in front of the newbies. So what if they were all older than him by at least three or four years- they were new to Ferelden and if Joining seniority was a thing than location seniority could be too. Anyway, they'd been calling him _'Constable'_ all this time already, hadn't they?

"Leonie, go on and take the rest ahead," he ordered. "Tell your brother we made it. I'll catch up with Zevran."

She gathered everyone up and the rest of the Wardens continued on to the Vigil. Zevran only relaxed when they were out of sight.

"We lied," he told Alistair, the usual smile back on his face. "I am no Warden. We are merely pretending so I am not kicked out."

"Thank Andraste for _that,_ " Alistair said, swinging down from his saddle. "You scared me Zevran, I thought Theron really _had_ gotten that desperate!"

"Hm, well," Zevran said thoughtfully. "I was not here. I would not know. But he _did_ induct a Fade spirit possessing a corpse."

" _He_ _ **what!**_ _"_

There were some things that you just did not do!

"And an apostate, a murderous Dalish Keeper, a man who wanted to assassinate him over the matter of his father, a very nice woman from the Legion of the Dead, and Oghren."

It was just as bad as he'd dreaded. Worse, even. And Oghren was the best of a group, for once! At least he'd had experience fighting darkspawn before this!

Though so would that Legionnaire. He was second-best, then. Still.

And was he _really_ surprised about the apostate or the Keeper? Theron had even been nice to Morrigan, and a Dalish refusing a Keeper was probably like trying to stand up to a Reverend Mother.

But-

"What is it with Theron and people who try to assassinate him?"

"Ah, Nathaniel decided against it, in the end," Zevran said. "He only tried to steal back some of his ancestral things."

"Ancestral things- wait, no. Nathaniel _Howe? Nathaniel Howe_ tried to kill Theron?"

"Assassinate," Zevran corrected. "There is a difference. Anyone can kill. It takes _training_ to assassinate. And technically… no. He never tried."

" _Nathaniel Howe_ is an assassin?"

"He says he learned when he was in the Free Marches. I have talked to him about it, and we have compared skills on the training grounds. He is passable. Not Crow material. But he could kill someone if they were not expecting to be killed."

"Isn't that the entire _point_ of an assassin? You don't see them coming?"

"Alas, you never will, my friend," Zevran sighed. "The opportunity has passed."

"Okay. Wow. No. That?" Alistair said, pointing an accusing finger. "Not that. I missed a lot of things about Ferelden, but _not that._ "

"But you would be disappointed and concerned if I ever stopped!"

"No I wouldn't," Alistair insisted. "So you haven't heard from Theron. Any idea where he was going?"

"We were sent a notice from Denerim that he picked up Fen'harel from the kennels," Zevran told him. "I went to ask around, and in the alienage- do you remember Shianni? She told me that Theron had stopped by and said he was going to Ostagar and the Dalish. I came back to tell the others, and we had planned to go and get him once we had dealt with things here-"

His expression turned sour and a tad furious.

"But then this _Caron_ came, and _he_ says we must stay and hold the Vigil for the Wardens. If I am to keep my place here, then I must play the good little Warden and _follow orders._ "

And Alistair had thought he might end up murdering the Wardens he'd been sent with. Zevran could actually do it.

"There should be enough of us with the people I brought and the Orlesians he was supposed to pick up," he said. "How many did he arrive with?"

"Some twenty," Zevran said. "The Vigil has gotten a tad crowed. At least the darkspawn army destroyed enough that there is space to build more quarters."

' _Some twenty'_ , the eleven he'd brought, the five or so already here, himself and Zevran and the darkspawn back in the Deep Roads-

"Almost forty is _plenty_ ," Alistair said. "We've more than enough to spare some to go looking for Theron."

* * *

Surprise of surprises, of course Gerod Caron didn't agree with him.

"Just _who_ is the most senior Warden around here?" he asked.

"Well, you, you've been Joined longest, but-"

"Which means _I'm_ in charge," Caron said. "Warden-Commander Mahariel has abandoned his post. You say he's gone to Ostagar and the Dalish? After putting a city to torch and abusing the Right of Conscription to snap up completely unsuitable recruits? He's run home in disgrace to hide and doesn't deserve his position."

Well _that_ was-!

"If _you_ want to go hunting for him, very well," Caron said. "As Acting Commander, I order you to hunt down the deserter and bring him back to face his court martial. Pick a partner and go. Was hoping I could have you as my Constable, but since you're being stubborn I'll have to take Howe."

There was so much-

" _Oghren_ is the first Senior Warden in Ferelden if I'm not around," he told Caron, trying to rally in the face of this dismissal. His immediate reaction had been to simply follow orders, but he was a Grey Warden! He'd fought an Archdemon and the Fifth Blight, almost all by himself! Bastards didn't get any pride or respect, but Wardens did!

"I'm not making a _lush_ my second-in-command."

There were at least two good reasons not to make Oghren Constable in Ferelden that Alistair could think of, and his perpetually drunkenness was one of them. The other was that Nathaniel Howe seemed to be integral to the political stability of the Wardens' new position here.

But it was the principle of the thing.

"Dismissed," Caron said, and this time Alistair followed the order on reflex. He was out of the room and some steps down the hall before he thought to protest further.

Blighted Templar training.

So he couldn't fight Caron here. But he could get Theron, and _Theron_ wouldn't stand for this. The other Wardens would defer to the properly-appointed Commander of the Grey in Ferelden, too, so Caron wouldn't be able to count on his seniority _then._

The court martial was going to be a bit of a problem, but they could deal with that when they got to it.

Alistair didn't even have to think about who he'd ask to accompany him. He found Oghren and Zevran in the wine cellar, in the back with the giant casks of beer for the soldiers and staff.

"It is the only place to have privacy, with so many around," Zevran explained. "The others Theron recruited use it as well. Anders is especially fond of it. Caron and his men do not approve of apostates. There are some dozen, the closest to Caron, who were Templars once, or are fervent in their support of the Chantry. I think Caron took them for preference."

"He's ordered me to find Theron and bring him back for a court martial over _'deserting his post'_ ," Alistair told them. "I'm supposed to choose a partner and go."

"Ain't gonna be me," Oghren declared. "Someone's gotta look after the kids."

' _Kids?'_ Alistair mouthed to Zevran. The assassin's look silently promised an explanation later.

"Alistair, my friend, I am surprised at you!" he said aloud. "Who else would go with you but I? We are doing it for Theron, after all."

"And the kids," Oghren said pointedly.

Yes, he was clearly missing something else.


	3. Chapter 3

He and Zevran left the Vigil in silence, their horses trotting down the road towards the Pilgrim's Path. Alistair wondered if he was ever going to get a break. He'd done an awful lot of traveling in the past two years, and it would be nice to stay at home for a while.

"So," Alistair said after a time, because he was incapable of just going places in silence. It was oppressing and uncomfortable. "How was Antiva? Or do I not want to know?"

"Warm and sandy," Zevran said. "Full of good brandy and fine clothes and people would try to kill me if they had known I was still alive. A few less of those, now, and I can sleep a bit easier."

"You didn't say hello to any of your friends?"

"All of my friends are here," Zevran said, and it sounded entirely too honest, so Alistair let them lapse back into riding in silence.

They'd been on the road for a few hours when Zevran spoke again.

"I am glad to be away from there. I did not like the way they looked at me."

"What, like you were something they'd scrape off their boot?" Alistair asked. It was something he'd noticed, and he didn't get it. Everything Duncan had ever said, and the comments Riordan had dropped, had led him to believe that the Wardens were an egalitarian group. It wouldn't have been the first time that people had failed to live up to an ideal they were supposed to hold, but it was bothering him a lot anyway, because it wasn't just the Orlesians. The same attitude had existed in Weisshaupt as well. "Or was it the _'assassin'_ part they didn't like?"

There was silence again for a minute or two, and Alistair started to think he wasn't going to answer the question.

"There are no alienages in Antiva," Zevran finally said.

"You're having me on," Alistair accused.

"No, it is the truth!" Zevran insisted. "How else would the Crows take elves? In Antiva, the humans to do see fit to have us behind walls."

"Well, good for them."

"That would be too accommodating, you see?" Zevran continued, tone deceptively light. "Walls and gates would make it so hard for the city guard to drag off whomever they wished, or the Tevene slavers to go hunting. Walls would only give us ideas, you understand, about fortifications and revolutions."

Alistair had never thought of it that way. To be honest, he'd never thought much about alienages until the darkspawn had come to Denerim, and the walls had kept the elves from escaping more than they had protected them. There weren't any elves in Redcliffe, or in the Templars, and the one elven Warden that he'd ever met before Theron had been a mage first and foremost, functionally indistinguishable in outlook and culture from any human in the Circles.

"I had thought the walls would mean something. But it is just different logic. The attitude did not change. The Orlesians looked at me like they thought I should be behind walls. Not free."

"And the Fereldens are better?" Alistair asked.

"You are," Zevran said. "Wynne and Morrigan were. Nathaniel and Anders do not care. Queen Anora and Bann Teagan and Arl Eamon were polite to me. But even if none of that were true, I would still be here."

"Theron," Alistair said, thinking about the way the Dalish man had always honestly liked his company and hadn't even cared about the revelation that he was a bastard, except to stand up to Arl Eamon on his behalf. He liked Arl Eamon, he really did- but the man had been born to power and just hadn't understood that Alistair had meant it every time he'd said he didn't want to be king.

"Theron," Zevran agreed.

They stopped in the same inn Alistair had used on the way up, and the bartender threw in a discount and a promise to spread the news with a broad smile when he'd been told they were off to get the Hero of Ferelden. The next day they continued on to Denerim, where Alistair insisted on stopping in at the alienage to ask Shianni if she'd heard anything else.

She hadn't, so they retired to Arl Eamon's Denerim estate, where Theron and Alistair and any of their companions from the Blight year had been given permanent open invitations to stay.

To their surprise, Bann Teagan was currently in residence.

"I've just been overseeing some things," he told them over dinner. "The arlessa was living here until recently, and I was here to assist her moving out."

"Where'd she go?" Alistair asked, glad they'd missed her.

"The palace," Teagan said. "Queen Anora took her as a lady-in-waiting. I think it was a favor to Eamon. She's lived here since the end of the Blight. She couldn't stand Redcliffe any longer."

Alistair had a pretty good idea why, and wondered whether he should pretend he didn't feel guilty over Connor or not.

"How's Rainesfere?" he asked instead.

"We didn't get the Blight, so my bann can spare me," Teagan replied with a shrug. "Eamon knows it, which is why I'm here. What about Amaranthine? Have you reclaimed Soldier's Peak now that you have so many Wardens?"

"Soldier's Peak is in Highever," Alistair reminded him, puzzled as to how he could forget.

"Ah, no," Zevran spoke up. "The queen gave the Bann of Arland's Peace to Amaranthine."

"Really? Well, I guess that's still-"

He had been going to say that it was still technically under the Teyrn of Highever, but then he remembered that Amaranthine had been released from that vassalage when it had been given over to the Grey Wardens.

"And how does the bann feel about that?"

"I believe he is quite pleased," Zevran said. "Since he is now Bann of River Dane instead."

"Wait, what happened to the Bann of River Dane?"

"Queen Anora had him executed," Teagan told him. "Not long after you left. She had a lot of the banns who supporter her father executed just after the darkspawn were put down the second time. Bann Esmerelle was a good excuse."

"I don't know that one," Alistair admitted.

"The former Bann of Amaranthine," Zevran said. "She tried to kill Theron."

"Her own _liege?_ "

"It is being taken care of. Nathaniel contacted some people he knew in Kirkwall, where her conspirators fled. They are being hunted down."

The internal politics of Ferelden had changed a _lot_ in the time he'd been gone. Relearning it was going to be a pain.

"So how many banns are now banns of somewhere else?" he asked.

"Just the two," Teagan said. "The old Bann of South Fort is now Bann of Oxford, since Ostagar was given over to the Dalish. Queen Anora had her own banns executed and added their lands to her direct holdings."

"So… the crown's," Alistair said. "I can't imagine anyone is too happy about _that._ "

"Eamon isn't," Teagan sounded uncomfortable about that. "But she's our queen, and now she owns a third of the country outright, and no one can do anything about it. At least with Isolde as part of her household Eamon can feel like she's listening to him."

Teagan didn't want to talk any more about politics after that, so Alistair left it alone. This sort of thing was why he never would have been good at being king.

The next morning saw the two of them on the South Road to Lothering. The Bann of South Reach, which they spent most of the journey riding through, had taken the brunt of the damage from the Blight, and it still showed. Most of the farm villages and hamlets they passed were abandoned or burnt out, and the larger walled towns bore obvious signs of attack on what of their walls was still standing.

They were camping in the ruins of an unnamed hamlet when Alistair remembered that he had a question he'd never asked.

"Did Oghren get married again?" he asked Zevran. "He seemed pretty concerned about those kids of his."

"I believe he did get married again," Zevran said. "But that is not what he meant. He has become protective of the others Theron recruited."

Alistair tried to imagine Oghren being protective of anyone, and wasn't very successful. Visions of alcohol and him accusing Branka of completely losing her sodding mind kept getting in the way.

Lothering itself was still mostly gone when they arrived, but the few who had returned had rebuilt what they could of the Chantry as the first priority, and formed the boundaries of the new town square by clustering their new houses in a horseshoe around its entrance.

In the center of the square stood a statue. It was roughly carved, but still recognizable as Theron.

"Oh, he won't like _that,_ " Alistair muttered when he saw it.

Unfortunately, he himself was recognized by the current inhabitants of Lothering, and forced to attend a dinner of honor that left him very uncomfortable.

"We didn't even save the town," he eventually told Miriam, the woman in charge, once he'd temporarily escaped. "I don't deserve this."

The old herbalist gave him a look.

"But because of you, we had somewhere we _could_ come back to," she told him. "That's more than we ever expected."

From Lothering it was a turn south onto the last leg of the Imperial Highway to get to Ostagar. There was only one day's travel before they saw the first, clear signs of new ownership in the area. A pair of wooden statues, lovingly carved and stained, dressed in flowers and bright strips of cloth, guarded the Highway from here on in.

"Mythal the Great Protector and Sylaise the Hearthkeeper," Zevran said, with a nod to the statues, when he saw Alistair examining them.

"Theron described them that well?"

"He did not have to. I ran away to the Dalish in Antiva for some time. Alas, the decadence of settled civilization was too strong a temptation to resist."

There were more signs of the Dalish the further on they went. There weren't any more decorated statues, but there were carvings into the low walls of the Highway and strings of hung windpipes. That night, they stopped on top of a clan camped under one of the great elevating arches of the roadbed, halla picketed out of the light rain of early winter and the sails on the landships furled.

By morning the temperature had dropped enough that the light rain had turned into the first snow of the season. It was barely more than a dusting, and only really served to make things damp in addition to cold. Alistair bundled up, armed with Ferelden stoicism in the face of adverse weather while Zevran huddled miserably in his cloak.

The Dalish guards on the Ostagar approach, when they finally reached them, had left off their bows to protect them from the wet and met them with shortswords instead. Alistair and Zevran got to wait while the guards sent someone to find anyone who could second their claim to being true Wardens and friends of Theron's, so Alistair gave himself an eyeful of Ostagar. It looked like the Dalish had decided to rebuild the fortress, maybe as some sort of city. There were cords staked out that he thought were probably guidelines for rebuilding the walls, and the gaps in the bridge had been laid over with planking. The roof of the old Tevene temple across the gorge had been patched where it hadn't completely fallen in, and there were rough wooden shacks all down the slopes, connected by the dark lines of newly-dug and flattened paths. Far below, on the floor of the gorge, a giant pasture had been erected and filled with hundreds of halla.

Another clan, almost certainly the one they'd camped over the night before, arrived while they were still waiting, and Alistair and Zevran were obliged to move out of the way as other Dalish came up from Ostagar to help settle the new clan. Alistair ignored the hostile looks he was getting and focused on the Tower of Ishal, wondering what the Dalish planned for the only intact structure in the entire fortress, and how they were going to address the tunnels the darkspawn had dug.

After an hour or more, the one the guards had sent off to look for confirmation of their visitors' identifies returned with two Dalish women, one whom Alistair recognized and the other of which just looked vaguely familiar.

"Ashalle, right?" he asked the one he knew. "Theron's mother."

"Guardian," she corrected. "And you are Alistair."

"Uh, yes. That's me."

"And Zevran," she said, her words containing a familiar tone that implied Theron had told her some things during the short time they'd had together at Queen Anora's coronation party in Denerim. "It is good to meet you again, _da'mi_."

Zevran bowed over her hand in a proper courtly fashion, but the greeting he gave was in El'vhen. Alistair could only get the tone, which was surprisingly sincere and respectful. Whatever he'd said, Ashalle's smile got warmer and more tender, and she laid a hand on top of his head to say something else. To Alistair, it looked something like a Reverend Mother's blessing, but what did _he_ know about the Dalish?

"I had not thought we would meet again," the other Dalish woman said to him, and Alistair finally realized where he knew her from. It was Lanaya, the woman who'd become Keeper of Zathrian's clan.

"We're looking for Theron, actually," he told her. "The elves in Denerim said he was coming here. Has he had a nice visit with his clan?"

"Clan Sabrae is no longer in this part of the world," Lanaya said. "We do not know where they have gone, if they survived the Blight."

"But Ashalle-"

"Refused to leave when her Keeper ordered the clan to move on, and lived alone in the woods waiting for the return of her ward until we found her. She has since been an honored kin-guest of Clan Vhadan'ena, as was _Arla'lanelan_."

"I'm sorry, what?" Alistair asked.

"Theron Mahariel Sabrae," Lanaya told him. "Home-giver to the Dalish. His memory will be carried through our clans until the end of our times, and until then we pray for our gods to watch over him, wherever he may be."

Alistair's heart sank. Of _course_ it couldn't have been this easy.

"So you don't know where he is, either."

"But we know who does," Ashalle said. "A lone hunter came here some months ago, looking for Asha'bellanar."

"Who?"

He was going to be so lost by the time they left here.

"An ancient sorceress who lived in these marshes," Lanaya explained. "A great dragon."

"Oh," Alistair said, and desperately pretended that he hadn't been one of the people who'd killed Flemeth.

"The hunter claimed that the daughter of Asha'bellanar had stolen a book of ancient lore from her clan," Ashalle continued. "Theron said he knew her, and promised the hunter to help her get it back."

He cursed Morrigan silently as he racked his brains for what the witch could possibly have wanted secret Dalish magic for.

"Do you have any idea where they were going to look?" he asked, not really expecting anything.

"No."

Well, no surprise there.

"You cannot go looking for them," Lanaya told him.

Oh yes he could!

"What the Keeper means," Ashalle said, holding up a hand to keep him from speaking. "Is that since we know nothing of where they went or where they are now, the best way to find Theron is to wait for Ariane's clan to arrive. If you go looking for them they will shoot you, or you will pass each other on the roads without knowing it. Wait for Clan Athanae. If Theron is not with them, then they will be able to tell you where he went."

Alistair didn't like any of that, but she had a point. If there weren't any leads here about where Theron had gone, then they might as well wait for him to come back. It wasn't like they'd be able to track him in the Wilds.

"You're _sure_ this Clan Athanae is coming to Ostagar?" he asked, just to make sure.

"Word spreads," Ashalle said. "Eventually, _all_ Dalish will come, when they hear what we plan to do. They just need time."

So Alistair resigned himself to a winter of waiting.


	4. Chapter 4

It was a long winter in Vigil's Keep.

It could have been better if it wasn't so crowded, but Caron was still refusing to let anyone go to Soldier's Peak. Nathaniel wasn't quiet amongst the group about thinking that it was a stupid idea, but while Caron did actually listen to him sometimes, it was only really when he had something to say about Ferelden politics. This was _Warden_ business, so he wouldn't hear anyone's opinions but his own on the matter.

Anders spent more time hiding than the rest of them but Justice, who wasn't seen for such long periods that people had mostly forgotten he existed. The Orlesians hadn't brought any mages with them, so Anders was the only one at the Vigil besides Velanna, who they'd both agreed didn't count. The isolation was wearing on him just as much as they way the ex-Templars kept eyeing him. Ser Pounce-a-lot got warm and a bit fat mousing in the wine cellar, and Anders ended up enchanting a little cloth ball Sigrun stitched for him so his cat would have something to chase that he couldn't eat.

Sigrun also wasn't faring well. The Orlesian Wardens were ignoring her, and she was wilting from the inattention and losing herself in the Vigil's library. It was like being casteless again, she confided in them once, except that now she had books.

At first, Oghren didn't seem to be affected by any of the changes, but as the winter set in and the snow fell heavier and more often, the four of them realized that Oghren's propensity to come seek one of them out and give unsolicited advice and cheerfully bombastic pronouncements about things were happening just as often when he was sober as when he was drunk. In fact, he actually seemed to be drinking _less_ and spending more time sitting out in the Vigil's courtyard, sharpening his axe and surreptitiously watching everything.

Velanna, in an odd way, had it better than the rest of them. Vigil's Keep had sprouted a tent city outside her walls, mostly of Amaranthine residents who hadn't been in the city the day of the Burning and displaced farmers, but there were a large number of elves from around Ferelden as well, similarly displaced by the Blight or trying to take the opportunity to leave their old alienages. Having a Dalish Arl-Commander who was counted as a great hero by the _humans,_ even, had stirred up a lot of hope that things would change.

And that hope was being thwarted at the Vigil's gates, because Caron kept refusing to deal with them.

Velanna might have been exiled and clanless, stripped of her name; but she was still Dalish and trained to be a Keeper. She knew about the winter diseases and the importance of camp organization and hygiene, which the tent city didn't have. She spent her days down in the tents with the city elves, banking on the usual distant respect most had for their Dalish cousins- and their Keepers in particular- to reorganize things and provide what healing she could.

Weeks into winter, after the first really big snowfall, she was helping to clear paths through the tents when Oghren arrived, trailing Anders and Sigrun.

"They needed to get out of the Vigil," he grunted, when Velanna asked what they wanted. "And sparkle-fingers is a healer, ain't he? I still don't know much about the surface and especially not this sodding magic stuff, but I know you're the _'boom'_ sort of magic."

"' _Boom'_?" she asked, amused despite herself.

"You make trees attack people," he said. "Terrifyin', but not great for wet cough."

She accepted their help, and let Oghren and Sigrun take over the snow-clearing contingent so she could drag Anders off to the hospital tents.

It took a few days to fully clear the tent city, but now that they'd come, none of them ever really left. Anders became a fixture in the hospital tents, eventually moving his bedroll and belongings into one of them so he'd never have to go back to the Vigil. Sigrun brought books down from the library and read out of them to the children, human and elven.

Oghren went back to his loud, bellicose self, but didn't take up drink until the evenings most days. He spent some weeks stomping around the tents eyeing things critically, and then went to Velanna as the months turned from Firstfall to Haring.

"It's ain't defensible!" he exclaimed. "I've seen better-fortified duster hovels! A coupla bandits could storm through here and take everything, no sodding problem!"

" _Shem'len_ don't arm elves," Velanna said coldly.

"Well we ain't _shem'len,_ " Oghren growled. "And they ain't all elves."

Velanna and Anders, who was familiar with a similar situation from the Circles, had to talk him down from full-scale weapons training of the refugees.

"They have to be able to hid it and they have to have deniability," Anders told him, for what felt like the tenth time. "Or the humans will kill them. It'll probably be on Caron's orders, too."

Sigrun ended up having the teaching duty passed on to her, since she'd taken a rouge's training with the Legion, and had grown up with knifework in Dust Town. She insisted on arming the women and teenagers, male and female, first.

Which meant a lot of knives. They all sorted through the random collection of mission-loot Wardens under Theron inevitably collected, and then raided the Vigil's leftover armaments. It was enough to get started but not nearly enough overall, even with some of the elves and humans repurposing kitchen knives.

So they went to Nathaniel.

"You wanted to arm stressed and angry teenagers?" was his only question.

"They're the most vulnerable!" Sigrun said hotly. "Everyone knows human men will rape elven women, but they do it to human women too! Teenagers are smaller and not as strong as a human man, and the elven ones are shorter and weaker again!"

"But young, angry men-" Nathaniel said, his expression suggesting that he was thinking of his own past decisions.

"You do not want to know the things I've heard about elven teenagers being called _'pretty boy'_ ," Sigrun told him darkly, and he stopped offering opposing points.

"I can't get you anything from the Wardens," he said. "But I've been acting as Seneschal. I can slip you something from the arling. I'll note it in the accounts as _'for the defense of the citizenry'_."

"Great," Anders said. "But how are we supposed to smuggle in that many knives?"

"I'll take care of it."

Later that day, Nathaniel went down to Wade and Herren's forge.

"I've got a new challenge for you, Wade."

"No, don't encourage him!" Herren protested. Nathaniel held up a hand to quiet him.

"It's not one of materials," he told Wade. "It's of skill and cunning. I want you to make knives- regular steel fighting knives. But I want them to be very _good_ knives that look like very _bad_ knives, nothing anyone would look twice at. And I want you to make them without the Orlesians noticing."

Wade looked at least a little intrigued, which was good.

"Blades any assassin would weep to possess, disguised as a humble low-end kitchen utensil…" he mumbled to himself.

"And once they're done I'll give you a _real_ commission," Nathaniel promised. "You've proven your worth with drakescale, but how do you feel about dragonbone?"

" _Dragonbone!"_ Wade gasped in enthusiasm, and drifted off into a creative fog.

Herren sighed.

"How many knives?" he asked in resignation.

Nathaniel named his number.

" _That many!"_

"I'm confident in your skills," he said. "You did wonderful work with the silverite armor for the Vigil's soldiers, and _that_ was a rush job."

"But-"

"The arling is paying," Nathaniel told him quietly. "Officially and without sanction."

That was a magic phrase. It had a long tradition of competent administrators doing the right thing for the lands and people of nobles who didn't know any better.

And, once, as a code for rebellious activity.

"Ah," Herren said with a gleam in his eye. "I _see._ Of course, Warden Howe. Anything for our _Orlesian protectors._ "

Loghain had stirred up prejudice that had started to go dormant. Nathaniel was not above exploiting it to keep Amaranthine together until the Warden-Commander returned.

* * *

The first news they had from Alistair and Zevran came the day a messenger rode into the tent city with a letter for Oghren. Sigrun took it, assuming it was from Felsi, and then called everyone together when she realized it wasn't.

They gathered in the tent Velanna was forcing Anders to share with her so he wasn't living in the hospital to hear her read it aloud.

' _Oghren,_

 _We followed Theron's trail from Denerim to Ostagar, but his clan isn't here. Apparently they left the country right after he joined the Wardens, and haven't come back yet. The news is he joined up with some Dalish woman and went hunting Morrigan, who stole some old book of secret Dalish magic, and we're being held hostage with hospitality until she brings her clan to Ostagar. They assume that Theron will be with them, and just say that I can ask the clan where he went if he isn't. They don't seem to be too concerned that any news we have from them will be months old, probably, and likely useless._

 _Not that we'd have much better luck clumping around in the Wilds looking for some sign of him. We'd just get ourselves killed, they're right about that much. So we're waiting._

 _I think Ashalle, Theron's adoptive mother, has also adopted Zevran. It's not really clear to me. I can't even tell if they did something officially, but more than one person has just called him 'Zevran Arainai Sabrae' like it's no big deal- that last one's Theron's clan. I don't know, maybe it's just because we're living with Ashalle and they're confused. But no one has called him 'Zevran Arainai Vhadan'ena' which is the clan the three of us are actually guests of, so maybe-_

 _Anyway, doesn't matter. Theron's not here, we don't know where he is, and we've been conscripted into helping the Dalish make a city out of Ostagar until Clan Athanae gets here._

 _-Alistair'_

It was dated the last day of Firstfall, almost a month ago now, which said something about the average state of travel in Ferelden these days.

"But we need him _here,_ " Sigrun said after a moment. "I'm sure the book is important, but-"

"I wish he hadn't taken Zevran," Nathaniel said. "He would have been useful here."

"He just woulda run off after Alistair anyway," Oghren told him. "He couldn'ta stayed here not knowing if the Commander was all right."

"Still, he has contacts the rest of us don't," Nathaniel said. "We might have learned something new by now."

Winter dragged on, and now that they were past the halfway point, the snow gave way to the classic Fereldan late-season freezing rain. The Vigil iced over and the Orlesians fell up and down the stairs, cursing the sea winds that brought the storms and the cold and Ferelden in general.

By the time the stress of wind and ice had culled dead and weak wood off the trees, and the natives of the arling were out collecting the broken branches to dry out and serve as fire fuel for next fall, the tent city was on the edge of starvation. Velanna and Anders were tearing their hair out trying to keep the deaths down, and the only real saving grace of the situation was that the elves and the humans were uncommonly friendly, welded together into one community by the shared adversity and the illicit weapons-training they were getting.

A Warden came down from the Vigil one of the days where the tent city was covered in an atmosphere of gloom, feeling it's immanent slow doom.

"What do _you_ want?" Anders demanded when Leonie appeared at his and Velanna's tent. He was never particularly polite most days now, but he had even less patience and respect for the sister of the man who'd driven him down to the tents.

"You're doing something here," she told him. "It's not like in the Vigil. My brother and his men are always in a bad temper, and he keeps arguing with Nathaniel about everything. I was trying to make friends with the Voshai because Gerod's group is all as prickly and cabin-fevered as he is, but they all moved out weeks ago to camp in the abandoned fields. Nelle and I pitched our own tent with them a few days ago, but… it's lonely."

She paused.

"And they've got a talking corpse."

"So _that's_ where Justice went," Anders muttered.

"We're not here to provide _socialization,_ " Velanna told her, stepping out of the tent. "We're _working._ "

"So let us help," Leonie said. "I can go get Nelle. I can see there's not enough food, we can go hunting."

"You can't possibly hunt up enough to help."

"It'll be something."

They weren't going to tell her _no,_ so Leonie and Nelle worked their way into the fringes of the group.

But it still wasn't enough. Nathaniel had managed to provide what he could from the arling's funds to feed the refugees, but it _really_ wasn't enough.

"We have to put money aside to rebuild Amaranthine," he told them when he came down to talk to them about it. "I'm _sorry,_ but you have to make do with what's left over, and I used a lot of it to get those knives from Wade."

"Yer telling me you have to keep money for Amaranthine," Oghren said. "So where're the sodding working crews! Where're the caravans to bring the stone and the wood!"

"It's Caron!" Nathaniel shouted. "It's always blighted _Caron!_ Bann Esmerelle was killed for treachery so I invoked the arl's rights on the Commander's behalf since he wasn't here and added the Bann of Amaranthine to his personal holdings! I thought it would keep the other banns from arguing all the time about the city taking primacy! But now _Caron's_ made himself Acting Commander and when Mistress Woolsey was pressing him all the time to revitalize the arling's trade he agreed with her so _she_ told me, with his authority, to put money aside for Amaranthine; but he keeps saying fixing the arling's problems isn't the job of the Wardens! _'We're not in the Anderfels,'_ he keeps saying. _'And look what happened when we got involved with the locals there.'_ He won't give the order to start anything, but he won't tell Mistress Woolsey to let me use the money for something else, either!"

He took a deep breath and rubbed his face.

"Sorry," he muttered. "I didn't need to yell."

"No, I think you did," Anders said.

"What's wrong with the Anderfels?" Sigrun asked.

"The… First Warden," Leonie said uncomfortable. "The Wardens have always served as a sort of guard force in the Anderfels, beyond the threat of darkspawn, and the current First Warden might think that that gives him the authority and right to challenge the king. Not that the King of the Anderfels is very good at his job, anyway. The situation in the Anderfels is why the First Warden agreed to having the Warden-Commander also being Arl of Amaranthine. At Weisshaupt, we all thought it was a way for him to prove that Wardens make good rulers."

"Well, _our_ Commander did," Nathaniel said. "But now I'm stuck with your _brother,_ who, I'm sorry, Leonie, shouldn't have been trusted with more than a patrol. He's said a couple of things about opening the Deep Roads under the Vigil."

" _What?"_ Oghren roared. _"That sodding- I'll rip his face off!"_

"Captain Garavel and Mistress Woolsey and I have convinced him not too so far!" Nathaniel tried to calm him. "But he's stuck on _'In peace, vigilance'_ and keeps saying that they need to be cleaned out!"

"You can't just _'clean out'_ the _Deep Roads,_ " Sigrun said. "He's a _Warden,_ he should know that."

"He thinks they're a threat to the safety of the Vigil and the Wardens."

"He's sodding _right_ they are, that's why Theron had them sealed in the first place!" Oghren fumed. "That's why he burned Amaranthine and came back here! If the darkspawn had taken the Vigil-"

"They could have opened the doors to the Deep Roads and then we'd never have been able to stop them, yes, I know," Nathaniel said. "But there's no marauding hordes now, so Caron won't consider the point."

"I say we let him go," Anders said. "He can take his cronies, and then we can close the doors behind them, say they heard their Calling, and take back the Vigil."

"No, Anders," Nathaniel sighed. "We can't commit murder with darkspawn."

"But it wouldn't be. It would be suicide. We wouldn't _make_ him go down there. We just wouldn't stop him."

"We're not _murdering people._ "

"Says the trained assassin."

"He's my brother," Leonie said quietly, and Anders finally looked guilty.

"What's his _problem,_ anyway?" he groused, changing the subject.

"You don't understand," Leonie said. "Wardens are heroes here."

"Just the Commander, really," Nathaniel disagreed. "And only because of last year. We didn't have any at all before that. When I was a child-"

"No," Leonie interrupted him. "It is… like the Anderfels, here. There are _always_ darkspawn in the Anderfels somewhere, and everyone knows that they can't survive without Wardens. You just had a Blight, in a place that isn't usually touched by them. No one questions the Wardens' authority or their right to be here. But in Orlais, in the Free Marches, everywhere else, they don't think like that. They don't see why Wardens are necessary. They say we're freeloaders, jumped-up vagabonds, the dregs pretending like we're worth something. They say because we have mages who live outside the Circles, we support blood mages and Abominations. They say we're full of conscripted thugs and criminals and murders and the scheming poor, because who else would _want_ this job?"

"Watch your tongue," Oghren growled.

"The Orlesian and Marcher Wardens fight that every day of their lives," Leonie continued. "And when Ander Wardens are selected to cycle to a different post, they don't expect it. It can cause incidents, which doesn't help the perceptions. Gerod and I started in Orlais, and then they sent us to Weisshaupt, because Gerod couldn't stand to be _'disrespected'_. He was _good_ in Weisshaupt. He should have stayed there, but the First Warden sent us here, because he wanted the Voshai away from the really _strict_ parts of the Chantry and Nelle and I weren't suited for Weisshaupt and Gerod has a record. I think he thought we'd settle down if we weren't faced with darkspawn all the time but were surrounded by people who thought well of Wardens."

"Well, he's ruining it," Anders told her. "The only reason the people of Amaranthine haven't run the Wardens out is because the Commander did so much for them, and because _we've_ been down here helping them _now._ And they all know we're _his_ recruits, so it's not reflecting well on your brother."

"But," Leonie said, and wrung her hands. "Well, I don't exactly know- I could be wrong- we haven't really talked-"

"You still know him better than us," Nathaniel gently prodded. "Any insight could help."

"He showed up here with his friends from Orlais, all of them ready and braced to hear the same sort of stories about the quality of people in the Wardens, and found out that the Ferelden Wardens were made up of two Dalish, an apostate, a bastard, a traitor's son, a drunk, a Legion deserter, an assassin, and a possessed corpse."

There was silence for a moment.

"Well when you put it like _that-_ " Anders said.

"We lied about the assassin," Oghren assured her. "He ain't a Warden. He and the Commander just have a thing goin' on, if you get what I'm sayin'."

"I'm not sure that's really… _better,_ " Leonie said.

"We're everything the Wardens have been accused of being," Nathaniel muttered to himself. " _Great._ That's _exactly_ the impression we wanted to give."

"He's trying to improve your reputation," Leonie offered weakly.

"Well, like I said," Anders told her. "He's _ruining_ it. Can't you talk to him or something? He's _your_ brother."

She was reluctant to try, but they eventually convinced her, Nathaniel walked her back up to the Vigil. They were blocked at the entrance by a commotion- Caron was standing there, watching the Wardens as they evicted the Glavonak brothers, Dworkin and Voldrik.

"Maybe not right now?" Leonie suggested.


	5. Chapter 5

They did wait, and it didn't make much of a difference. Nathaniel wasn't present in the room when Leonie accompanied her brother back to his office to have a talk, but he could hear the yelling from where he was waiting outside.

Leonie came out crying, and Nathaniel bundled her back to his room for some privacy, since she'd vacated the ones she'd had in the Keep.

Sergeant Maverlies came to find him there.

"There's a lot of muttering in the courtyard, Ser- Warden Howe," she informed him. "The men don't like that Senior Warden Caron had the Glavonak brothers kicked out. They all know they have Voldrik to thank for walls that didn't break under an ogre, and- well, Dworkin is a menace with those lyrium experiments of his, but we all also know how effective they were."

And he, Nathaniel, as the son and heir and sole remaining member of the family who had held this arling for as long as history could remember, no matter the current developments, was probably the only one who could keep things calm.

So he went down to listen to the men, and got an earful. _They_ weren't any happier about the Orlesian Wardens than the rest of them were, and were chafing at the way that some of their duties had been taken over by all the new arrivals.

"This _our_ home, and we defended it against _two_ darkspawn attacks, everything the beasties had to throw at us!" the most vocal of them said, to nods all around. "And they just come in here and take over our guard stations and rotations, send patrols out and don't even do a proper job-"

"They're missing darkspawn?" Nathaniel asked, alarmed. He hadn't heard _anything_ about that.

"Oh no," the soldier said bitterly. "They're _looking_ for darkspawn, and never find any. But they completely ignore the bandits! We told Captain Garavel about it, and he took it to the Senior Warden, and _he_ said it wasn't any of his business! The _Arl-Commander_ made it his business! And there's all those people starving out there at the gates, and he won't do anything for them! The Arl-Commander cared! They caught me stealing food when _my_ family was starving, and what did he do?"

"Conscripted you to the army so your family would get fed," one of the man's comrades said tiredly. "And _then_ he sent soldiers to guard the farms too, so less people would be in the same position. Yes, we _know,_ Alec, you're always saying so."

"I remember you," Nathaniel said. "Varel presented your case in court that one time."

"That's me," Alec said proudly. "I was a shepherd, and look at me now! I'm a soldier, and my wife and parents are eating again. They even bought back some of the sheep, so we've got a flock again!"

"If you're that worried about people starving," Nathaniel told him. "I have some people you'd like to meet."

A number of the soldiers, inferring that he had a way for them to help, refused to be left behind, so Nathaniel went back to the tent city for the second time that day. Some of the humans they passed eyed them warily, and they didn't see any elves at all.

Or maybe they did. There were plenty of people with hair long enough to cover their ears around, and some of the people clustered in the family groups looked suspiciously short next to people who were obviously human.

Thankfully, when they reached Velanna and Anders' tent, there were still people there. Oghren, Sigrun, and Nelle were hosting Voldrik and Dworkin. Nelle was listening in fascination to Dworkin's story of the darkspawn attacks on the Vigil, and the role his lyrium sand explosives had played, while Oghren and Sigrun were trying to convince Voldrik that _they_ weren't going to kick him out.

"We can go to Denerim!" Voldrik was insisting. "They're rebuilding there too, and they could use my stonecraft!"

"We could use it here too, Master Voldrik," Nathaniel told him as he stepped into the tent with Alec. "Amaranthine is going to need good stone to rebuild."

Voldrik _hmph_ ed.

"Oh, so you're trying to convince me that Warden is finally agreeing to do something _useful?_ Not likely."

"But there's no one the rest of us would trust more to truly rebuild Amaranthine as something better than it was before," Nathaniel said. "We'll need you."

"I think we both know _exactly_ how likely rebuilding is going to be, son."

"Then stay long enough to make us plans?" he wheedled. "I'll pay for it out of my own purse. I have enough for that."

Voldrik kept frowning, but he sighed out his nose.

"I can't do it from here," he said. "I have to _see_ the place. I have to know what there is to work with. I won't take my mad brother, and I won't go without protection."

"We happen to have soldiers with no other orders," Nathaniel told him. "If I can get them reassigned to you, will you accept that as part of your payment?"

"You can do that?" Sigrun asked him quietly.

"I have a plan," he whispered back, well aware that Voldrik could still hear them.

"It had better be good gold."

"Nelle," Nathaniel said, pulling her from her story. "This is Alec. He's representing some soldiers, and they're not any happier with how Caron is handling things than we are. If things work out, I think they'll be able to help you and Leonie hunt."

Nelle broke out in a smile.

"That would be really good. Where _is_ Leonie, anyway?"

"She… let's just say her brother wasn't in a listening state of mind."

That put a bit of a damper of mood, but things were still looking up. Nathaniel went back to the Vigil to find Mistress Woolsey.

"If we can bring the Acting Commander plans for the rebuilding, maybe he'll finally agree to it," he told her. "And if Amaranthine gets rebuilt, then we have the spine of our trade network restored."

That was enough for her, and they went together to Captain Garavel, who was eventually convinced to assign those who weren't currently doing much, or were doing things that could be put off, to go hunting for the refugees. He put Sergeant Maverlies in charge of the unit, since she was the best archer they had.

It helped, especially when the Sergeant came up with more bows than people who could use them, and Oghren combed through the refugees to find experienced hunters who could use them, and guides who could show everyone the game trails.

It still wasn't really enough. They made it past the last snow- poetically enough on First Day- but there were pyres enough to unfreeze part of the ground early enough that Velanna and Anders staked out a section of it for gardens, come slightly warmer weather.

Mud season, winter turning slowing to spring, was upon them when Velanna called everyone together in her tent- Anders, Nathaniel, Oghren, Sigrun, Leonie, Nelle, Maverlies, and Alec.

"This is too big," she said, haggard with both lack of food and lack of sleep. "There are too many people here, and it can't be supported."

"But there's nowhere else for them to go!" Sigrun protested. "We can't just turn them out!"

"A lot of Fereldans are still going to Kirkwall," Anders said. "But I don't think we can send them on in good conscience, not with how many have already left."

" _I_ knew that," Nathaniel said, puzzled. "It's been in the crown's reports to the arlings and banns. But how did _you_ know that?"

Anders shut up, and refused to answer the question.

Velanna took a deep breath.

"I can take them," she said. "The _El'vhen,_ at least. To the Wending Wood."

"There's an entrance to the Deep Roads there," Sigrun reminded her.

"Which is a good excuse to Caron about why I'll be out there."

"The elves here aren't Dalish," Alec reminded her.

"Not now," Velanna said. "But they can be. I was exiled; I am clanless, nameless. My sister is Tainted, and the rest are dead. I cannot revive Clan Tarasel. But I am trained as a Keeper. I can lead my own clan, and I know the rituals to found a new one. It has not been done in… centuries. But you cannot be un-made Dalish, even by exile. I am allowed."

"Even Caron couldn't miss a bunch of elves suddenly camped out in the Wood," Nathaniel said. "Someone will tell him eventually."

"We will be hunting for our own food in the Wood," Velanna said. "The soldiers and those who already go hunting won't have to feed us, and you can buy our extra. And we-"

Her mouth pressed into a tight line for a moment.

"-we'll guard the road," she said. It sounded like she really hadn't wanted to.

"The _Pilgrim's Path?_ " Anders asked with a gleeful smile. "The road through the Wending Wood? You'd guard it for the caravans? The very same road, where not that long ago, you-"

"You don't need to bring it up again!" Velanna snapped at him.

Nathaniel and Maverlies looked at each other.

"I'm sure some of those elves who go with her will be ones who are volunteer hunters right now," she said. "We'll have to find some way to replace them."

"I could write it off in the records as _'providing for the safety of arling'_ ," he said. "It won't cost us any money, and if Caron asks, I can honestly say that the refugees who left are gone because they found a new place to live with gainful employment."

"The Voshai can hunt," Nelle said. "They've been hunting for themselves at their camp. If they can be convinced to help, they can replace some of the elves who leave."

"Do you even know if there _are_ elves who'd want to become Dalish?" Leonie asked Velanna.

"Yes," the Keeper said. "In the early days, they'd keep asking where my clan was, and if they could join them. Since it's become common knowledge that they're all dead, I've had the same questions about going to Ostagar. I've only told a few people, the healthiest ones without any family of their own, to go. The ones who are still here will come if I say."

It _would_ solve part of their problems, they eventually agreed, once Nathaniel brought up the point that a permanent Dalish presence guarding the road could just as easy serve as guards for the reopening of the granite quarry the Commander had had started to provide Voldrik with his stone, and the silverite mine that had been cleared of the Architect and his darkspawn. At this point, all that was a bit of a pipe dream, but everyone needed a little hope and something to look forward to.

Velanna planned to do the founding ritual during Wintersend, while the Andrastians were busy with Chantry services, which lined up with when Voldrik was scheduled to go to Amaranthine and start making his plans. This gave Velanna a little time to prepare the elves who'd become the first members of her new clan, and for Leonie and Nelle to recruit the Voshai to the hunters.

The first was easy. The second ran into a quick roadblock.

"The soldiers and the refugee volunteer hunters are getting paid," Nelle explained to Oghren, who was falling into the leadership role in the tent city now that everyone knew Velanna was going to be leaving. Anders was still in charge of the hospital tents, and Oghren was leaning on him and Sigrun pretty heavily, but Anders wasn't inclined to be a leader and Sigrun didn't have the experience yet. Oghren had led troops before, and had the necessary organizational knowledge. "And the Voshai know it."

"They're already gettin' their Warden stipend, and they ain't spending it anywhere! There's nowhere _to_ spend it!"

"I think that's part of their problem," Nelle said. "They have money, but that doesn't really matter to them. The Wardens provide them supplies, and if they're not at the Vigil to receive food they're perfectly capable of hunting and foraging for themselves. But they know that having money means something to the soldiers and the refugees, even if they can't use it right now, so they want something that matters to _them_ as payment."

Oghren grunted.

"Fine. Fair enough. What do they want?"

Nelle sighed.

"Lyrium."

"That's expensive," Oghren said.

"And illegal!" Anders called from behind his partition of the tent.

"Yer supposed to be _sleeping,_ mage!" Oghren yelled back. "Pipe down and get dreaming!"

He dropped his voice so Anders would have to work to hear him.

"Lucky us we know a dwarf who's always after lyrium, ain't we? Lemme talk to him."

Dworkin readily divulged his contacts in Orzammar, and agreed to let their shipments travel under the disguise of his own specially-ordered lyrium sand, so long as they paid for their share of the shipping costs. Nelle went back to the Voshai to tell them that they could have as much lyrium as their stipends would cover, and Nathaniel uneasily arranged for what they would have been paid for any game they brought in to be given in trust to Oghren, who'd buy as much lyrium for them with it as he could. The Voshai happily moved to the edges of the refugee camp at the news and immediately handed over their amassed coin to Dworkin so he could place an order immediately.

To everyone's surprise, Justice had given his money to the Voshai, as well.

"I have no need of gold and silver," he told Anders, when he asked. "The Voshai need lyrium for their religious services, and it is unjust that they could not obtain it."

* * *

On a very nice day, the first one where it really _felt_ like spring could be coming, Nathaniel went for a walk through the tent city. He threaded his way through, unobtrusively observing, and reflected that if Caron and the other Orlesian Wardens ever bothered to take a _real_ look at what was going on out here, they'd probably all be sent to the Deep Roads or whatever Wardens did when they needed to get rid of people.

Here were humans and elves greeting each other as neighbors. Here were Vigil soldiers _'showing off'_ to a gathered group of young and not-so-young, giving fighting lessons that didn't look like lessons. Here was Sigrun under a big canopy pulled together from bits of tents that hadn't been weatherproof enough any longer, teaching her regular group the basics of reading and writing. Here was Anders at the hospital tent, here was Velanna making sure the people who were going to be in charge of the herb garden and the vegetable plots weren't going to kill everything once she left, here was Oghren arguing with the leaders of the new districts he'd organized, here was a Templar-

Shit. Here came a bunch of Templars.

Nathaniel grabbed a group of children who'd stopped their playing to stare and gave them quiet orders. One was to go to the hospital and tell Anders to stay out of sight, one to go to the Voshai and tell them to keep quiet about their religion and take Justice out to the fields or hunting or something, and the rest would go spread the news generally, so everyone was prepared to pretend that nothing illegal or out of the ordinary happened here regularly.

"Warden Howe," he told the Templar who'd ridden ahead of the others. "Constable of the Grey in Ferelden and Acting Seneschal of Amaranthine. I wasn't informed we were expecting Templars."

"You weren't," the Templar told him. "I have a letter from Senior Enchanter Wynne of the Circle in Kinloch Hold, for the Warden Alistair."

"He's not here," Nathaniel told him. "He's in Ostagar, but I can send it on to him for you."

"That would be appreciated."

He took the letter and eyed the other Templars. They were at the camp now, but they weren't coming up the path towards the Vigil's gates. They were fanning out into the tent, ahorse and afoot.

"What about them?" he asked, keeping his face carefully schooled.

"We've had reports that a Circle escapee we've been searching for is hiding with the refugees," the Templar said. "We'll leave once we've found him, or proven he isn't here. I'm to report to your Commander."

"Acting Commander," Nathaniel corrected immediately, because it was an important difference. He kept his expression schooled on the walk up to the Vigil to hide his racing thoughts.

Anders was a Grey Warden. They _couldn't_ take him. Arl-Commander Mahariel _himself_ had conscripted Anders right out of the last Templar who'd come to take him-

But what were the odds that Senior Warden _'blinded by my own fears'_ Caron wouldn't let them take him?

He didn't stick around once he'd delivered the Templar to Caron. He made up something about reassuring the refugees they Templars weren't here because they were being threatened by dangerous maleficarum and _ran_ back to the tent city, intent on the hospital.

Alec snagged him before he'd gotten very far.

"He went back to his tent!" he hissed, and Nathaniel changed course.

Anders almost bashed his brains out with his staff when he came in.

"They won't take you!" Nathaniel promised, grabbing him by the shoulders. The mage was shaking, eyes wide, and breathing too hard. "You're a Warden, they're not allowed-"

"I saw _Hunters,_ " Anders whispered, flinching at the sound of someone walking by. "The Templars brought _Hunters,_ I-"

"What are Hunters?" Nathaniel asked. He didn't like the sound of it, and if he knew what they were they could plan how to best to thwart them.

"Templar rogues, assassin trained, they're only supposed to be seen when they're searching for escapees and apostates, you're not even supposed to know _which_ Templars are Hunters, it could be any of them, they have these special helmets and these _knives-_ "

He was babbling.

"Take a deep breath and try to center yourself," Nathaniel ordered him. "We'll find a way to get you-"

"They're not here for _me,_ Nathaniel," Anders said. "They're here for Reland."

What?

"Who?"

"Someone I knew from Kinloch Hold," Anders told him. "He didn't like living in the Circle, either, but he never tried to escape like I did. Until the Templars came back from here without me. Reland told me the Circle thought they'd killed me, but then someone let slip that they couldn't get me because the Warden-Commander had conscripted me. Senior Enchanter Wynne told the young ones and the new ones about him- which was everyone, really, they got a bunch of new mages after that demon infestation- anyway Reland thought someone who'd traveled with a Witch of the Wilds and accepted _me_ would help him, except by the time he managed to get away Caron was already here. I've been helping him hide while we figured out a way to get him to the Free Marches."

" _That_ was why you knew most of the refugees were going to Kirkwall!" Nathaniel realized.

"We'd almost figured it out," Anders said quietly. He'd mostly stopped shaking, but now it looked like he might start crying. "In a couple of days, there's a ship with a regular schedule from Anselm's Reef, and he was going to be on it- he's not a _great_ healer but that's all he's done while he's here, help me with the hospital! He doesn't _deserve-_ "

Nathaniel got him to sit down.

"Here," he said. "Pet- pet Ser Pounce-a-lot, huh? He's down the front of your robe still, I bet he noticed you're scared."

The cat was extricated from Anders' clothes, and Nathaniel wondered again how the man managed to hide a full-grown cat in a Warden mage's armor. Wardens' armor wasn't a very spacious place.

"Just stay here," Nathaniel told him. "I'll come back and tell you when the Templars are gone."

He left Anders hugging Ser Pounce-a-lot and went to see what was going on.

The Templars had regrouped near the edge of camp where Nathaniel had met the Templar with the letter. Caron was there, expression pinched, and Oghren was glaring at everyone.

There was a body in the road, blood mixing with the season's mud. He was dressed like any other refugee, and Nathaniel had probably passed him unknowingly any number of times, never paying him any attention.

A Templar in a mask helmet was cleaning a pair of heavy, broad-bladed knives.

Reland had chop marks matching the length and weight of those knives in his skull.

 _That could have been Anders,_ Nathaniel thought. _Or Velanna._

"-sorry that it caused a disturbance in your camp," the Templar who'd had the letter was telling Caron. Apparently, he was the one in charge. "But an Abomination with the strength of the elemental spells this mage could have brought to bear would have been worse. This entire place could have gone up in a firestorm. Yet you say you had _no_ idea this mage was here?"

"None at all," Caron said stiffly.

"We haven't reintroduced Templars to this area because there isn't a real Chantry for them to report to, since Our Lady Redeemer burned along with the rest of Amaranthine," the Templar said. "We trusted the Wardens to handle these things on their own, given the way that the Hero of Ferelden handled the situation in Redcliffe and at our own Circle. We know he isn't a man who would stand for Abominations."

Nathaniel could _see_ Caron fighting with himself. Tell the Templar that his precious Hero of Ferelden, the absentee Arl-Commander he'd usurped, had inducted a possessed corpse; or preserve the reputation of the Wardens?

The reputation of the Wardens won out. Nathaniel wasn't surprised. He was also still a little disappointed, even though he didn't really _want_ anyone after Justice.

"I assure you, Ser," Caron said. "We don't tolerate Abominations any more than he did."

"Good," was the answer. The Templar Hunter had finished cleaning his knives, and was mounted again. "If we have another report, though, we'll have to base Templars out of Vigil's Keep until Our Lady Redeemer is rebuilt. If you could keep Kinloch Hold appraised of the progress of reconstruction in Amaranthine, the Knight-Commander would be much obliged."

The lead Templar turned his horse, and the group left.

Caron stood there watching them until they were a good ways down the road.

"Clean this up!" he snapped at Nathaniel, turning on his heel in a towering temper to stalk back up to the Vigil.

Nathaniel was still looking at Reland's body.

"We can't let Anders see this," he said, mostly to himself.

A hand came down gently on his shoulder, and he looked up. Velanna had appeared from somewhere. Her gaze was fixed on Reland.

"I worked with him," she said. "A few times, when Anders hadn't slept and we refused to wake him up. This shouldn't have happened to him."

"Anders can't see this," Nathaniel repeated.

Velanna glanced at him, and then nodded in agreement.

"I'll go find Sister Eileen," she told him. "You and Oghren wrap him up, and get some people to prepare a pyre."


	6. Chapter 6

Spring had come to Ostagar, and Alistair was in serious danger of completely losing his patience.

A number of clans had come over the winter, but none of them had been Clan Athanae. None of them had even heard anything about Clan Athanae coming.

"They were still camped in the Dales when we left," one of the newer-arrived Dalish had told them. "And they never said anything about leaving. They were still waiting for their book."

Which meant that Theron hadn't found it yet. Which meant that the clan wouldn't be going anywhere. Which meant that they knew _exactly_ where Theron was _going_ to be!

Alistair had desperately wanted to leave right then and go to the Dales, but it had been well into the worst part of winter by then, and the Frostbacks would have been impassible.

But Wintersend had been almost a month ago. It was spring now. By the time they got to the Frostbacks, the passes to Orlais would be totally clear and the first summer caravans would be ready to go, plentiful and more than willing to take on armed and battle-tested travelers who could help keep bandits away.

It was time to leave. They'd had a letter arrive at Wintersend, and Lanaya and Ashalle had run out excuses to keep them around. The rains had finished, there wouldn't be any more mudslides to endanger the houses on the slopes or travelers on the roads. Sources for more stone had been located and trade relationships solidified, they didn't need Alistair around any longer to serve as a middleman to the _shem'len_. No, that _wasn't_ the beginnings of a throat infection or a stuffy nose, that was just Zevran's accent!

The Wintersend letter had arrived with a lone elf, who had caused quite a stir in camp by announcing herself as Nesiara Tabris Velanna.

"No face tattoos just mean she's not an adult yet, right?" he'd asked Zevran, who'd been listening in as best he could. "She looks grown up to me. Do they think she's… unfit or something?"

"They are saying she is a new- ah, _'convert'_ is the word, I suppose," Zevran had told him. "Unusual, yes. Controversial… not so much."

"She is from a new clan."

Ashalle had come up behind them.

"Everyone who comes here is from a new clan," Alistair had reminded her, confused. "That's not- _wait,_ you mean _'new'_ like one you've never heard of before! Did you lose one somewhere? Are there a bunch of long-lost clans of the Dalish hiding somewhere?"

"No," Ashalle had said. "She is from a newly-created clan."

"Huh. You can do that?"

"Technically. But it is very rare, and none have ever been founded by an exile before, much less a Grey Warden."

"A Grey-"

"She is clan to our Velanna?" Zevran had mused. "Extraordinary. What _have_ they been up to this winter?"

It had turned out that that was part of what Nesiara had come to Ostagar for. Once she'd formally announced the existence of Clan Velanna to the Keepers of the clans at Ostagar, she'd sought them out and brought them up to date on what had been going on in Vigil's Keep up until Velanna had moved the new clan into the Wood.

Alistair hadn't been necessarily happy to hear about the Templars, but _had_ been pleased to hear that she was also not happy that they'd been stuck in Ostagar all season.

"I lived my whole life in Highever until I went to Denerim to get married," she'd told them. "That- didn't work out, and I had to go home, but it was gone and everyone I knew was dead when I arrived. I had to go back to Denerim, even though I hated it. When the Hero of Ferelden was made arl, I thought…"

She'd trailed off.

"Why did you hate Denerim?" Alistair had asked.

Nesiara's expression went wooden.

"I don't want to talk about it," she'd informed them. "Amaranthine almost worked out. It could still, for people like my cousin Kallian who can still stand to live with shems somehow. But it won't work with that- with that-"

She'd clearly been searching for something strong enough to describe Caron.

"-that _Orlesian_ in charge of Vigil's Keep. You need to find the Arl-Commander as soon as possible."

The letter she'd brought for him from Wynne said that Finn, one of the younger mages, had recently returned from Orlais. The Templars weren't pleased because it had been a long detour after leaving the Tower in Theron's company some months before, during the time that Wynne had still been in Cumberland at the College of Magi.

Theron had found Morrigan and the Dalish book.

In the Dragonbone Wastes.

"He was in Amaranthine! He was _in Amaranthine!_ "

But he hadn't stayed there, and Finn claimed not to know about Theron's whereabouts after they'd parted ways in the Wastes.

So actually, it had been like no news at all. But at least it meant that they couldn't be forced to stay in Ostagar any longer- and Alistair was almost convinced that they _would_ have been forced to stay by the guards and scouts, if they'd tried to leave without Ashalle and Lanaya agreeing to it.

It was nice to leave. They elves had gotten a lot of work done on it and Alistair had derived some personal satisfaction from helping them find all of the darkspawn tunnels and making sure they couldn't be used for another incursion from the Deep Roads, but it was still Ostagar.

" _Find him,"_ Ashalle begged them, past the edge of Ostagar's borders. She'd come upon them from the woods suddenly, and startled Alistair badly enough that he'd almost stabbed her. All winter he'd had no indication of the skills it must have taken to survive alone in the Brecilian Forest, caught between darkspawn ruins and werewolves, but now he believed it.

" _Find him,"_ she repeated, expression strained. "You _must. Please._ I endured through his living funeral when the Warden took him away, and I will not be able to stand it again. I do not _care_ if Sabrae lives or not- he is the only family I have left, my only clan. I must know what happened to him. If you find him dead, then bring me something I may bury."

Zevran handled her, speaking soft things to her in Elvhen until she ghosted back into the woods to return to Ostagar. Alistair had found himself winded, too frozen with the memory of how hard the new, fresh knowledge that the one person he had really considered family was dead had been to bear, to speak to her.

He didn't want to do that to Ashalle. Maybe she'd stalled them in Ostagar all winter, but now he thought maybe she'd done it because the only Warden who'd stood with Theron through the whole journey and the man he'd given his heart to were the closest she could get to her missing son.

Kinloch Hold, once they got there, was a good change. It looked much better without all the demons everywhere, and Alistair could put up with accidental lyrium exposure to get away from the memories of Loghain's betrayal.

The mage Finn was singularly useless, and Alistair, Zevran, and Wynne privately commiserated about how much of a hassle Theron must have found him.

"Not that Theron would ever have said anything to him, of course," Wynne remarked.

"Of course," Zevran agreed. "He is a gentleman."

"Do they stare at you too or is it just us?" Alistair asked.

"Oh, me, they know," Wynne told him, amused. "I am not nearly so interesting, even if I also traveled with the storied Hero of Ferelden."

"I guess that makes sense."

"I may also have told them that you were once going to be a Templar, and have been using your character to explain to the other why Templars deserve better from us than blind fear."

"Uh, glad I could help?"

"I am just glad to know what somewhere, not too long ago," Zevran said. "Theron was alive and well."

That killed the mood a bit, but Wynne gave him a small smile anyway.

"I'm sure he still is, Zevran. He has survived so much already."

"Surviving only means you have not died yet," he said, tone surprisingly bleak and pessimistic. "Not that you will continue surviving."

" _So_ how was your time in Cumberland," Alistair asked, more than ready to change the subject. "I had to go through Cumberland to get to Weisshaupt and back, I would have dropped in to see you if I'd known you were there."

Wynne had found the city quite pleasant, and enjoyed traveling and the change of scenery without having to worry about darkspawn. The proposal for the mages to secede from the Chantry had been dismissed through her own tireless work and effort, and generally all seemed well with the world.

"We did have one mage run away recently," she told them. "And the Templars weren't able to bring him back. He fought, and fell."

Alistair and Zevran simply stayed in Kinloch Hold for a few days, entertaining the apprentices when they weren't discussing what to do next. It seemed like all leads on Theron really had dried up, and that the only thing left to do was to go back to Amaranthine and try to mitigate the damage being done there.

The day before the deadline they'd given themselves to make the decision, the Circle got a lyrium shipment. Alistair had isolated himself in his room for the duration of the transfer, so it was Zevran who chatted to the dwarven traders who shipped the stuff and heard the news.

* * *

"The Warden-Commander? He was invited to the honor feast for the casteless of Kal'Hirol. All their names were read out, and they got elevated to the warrior caste posthumously. King Harrowmont did it to try to keep the dusters happy because they hadn't stopped clamoring about his election. They supported him thinking he was going to change things, and by the Ancestors I have no idea why! He's always been known as a traditionalist in the Diamond Quarter-"

"The Warden-Commander," Zevran urged.

"Oh, yes," the trader said. "Well, he came to the honor feast. That was a while ago, now. Months. Rumor has it he never left for the surface, and went into the Deep Roads instead."

Zevran's heart stuttered, and his hands went cold.

No, not the Deep Roads.

Theron had found Morrigan- Morrigan who he knew had done _something_ to prevent Theron's death when he killed the Archdemon.

They'd talked when he'd found her. Finn said he and Ariane had been told to stay back. They had no idea what Morrigan had told Theron.

What if whatever magic she'd done to keep Theron alive hadn't been permanent? What if it had just deferred the price to a later time? What if it had spared him, only to accelerate the course of the rest of his life to make up for it?

What if Morrigan had told Theron he was living on borrowed time.

What if Theron had heard his Calling early, because he hadn't died with the Archdemon.

Maker and Creators, please no.

"I don't know if it's true!" the trader said in alarm, seeing the sudden change in Zevran's expression. "The only thing I know for sure about the Deep Roads is that House Helmi has been planning an expedition to clean out the path to Kal'Hirol and reclaim the thaig for the smith caste, but they've had to put it off because the Legion's been reporting unusual darkspawn activity!"

Zevran made a paltry excuse for a farewell and fled to Alistair's rooms.

"It's only a rumor," Alistair tried to calm him. "And even if he _did_ go into the Deep Roads, he's been before, remember? When we were in Orzammar, and then at Vigil's Keep, and then a couple of other places around Amaranthine, and into Cadash thaig with Finn and Ariane. And he came out of all those fine."

"But he had people with him then," Zevran said. "And there was nothing about-"

"Look, we don't even know for sure he went down there. And if he did, then he's had time to come out again and head off somewhere else we won't hear about for another half a year, hasn't he?"

Still, they didn't wait to leave. They said a hasty goodbye to Wynne and got on the road. The speed they kept was a good one, but Zevran's insides were still twisted up by fear.

Getting into Orzammar was easy when you were wearing Warden armor. Given the preference, Zevran wouldn't be, but it was the armor he'd been wearing when they'd left Vigil's Keep, and he'd have to carry it around if he wasn't wearing it. Alistair would never let him sell it; and honestly, it was the best armor he'd ever had.

They had barely set foot out of the Hall of Heroes when they were beset. It could have been comical to watch- two groups of House armsmen trying to outrace the other without seeming to run, glaring ferociously at each other as they went- but Zevran wasn't in the mood.

Neither group quite managed to get ahead of the other, so they made up for it by doing their best to talk over the other.

"Honored Wardens, House Helmi-"

"Lady Selda Dace-"

"-question of Kal'Hirol-"

"-urgent matter requiring your personal attention-"

You could see the drop at the east end of the Orzammar Commons that led to the Deep Roads from the entrance balcony.

"We are here," Zevran said pleasantly, hearing the icy coolness of a true Crow's words in his own and not caring. "On a matter of utmost importance to the Grey Wardens of Ferelden. Now, unless one of you can tell us whether or not the Warden-Commander has entered the Deep Roads, you are _welcome_ to remove yourselves elsewhere."

"Of course he has," the leader for House Helmi said, sounding a bit confused. "Doesn't everyone know that? He went in five months ago, and no one's seen him since."

Five months.

 _Five months._

Zevran stepped back abruptly, trying to hide the way his hands were shaking.

Alistair glanced over at him in concern, and then casually took his spot, like it was no big deal.

"In Orzammar they might," he said. "But no one on the surface was expecting it, and this is the first we're hearing of it. When he left Vigil's Keep this wasn't where he said he was going."

Like he'd said he was going _anywhere-_

"Oh," the leader for House Helmi breathed, and the gathered dwarves all turned solemn. "Our sincerest condolences, Warden. Had we known he was answering his Calling, we would have offered to convey his last words."

Oh, Theron.

No.

He should never have gone to Antiva. He should have stayed in Amaranthine, and he should have been there when Theron had had to retake Vigil's Keep; and he should have been there with him when he went to Ostagar and when he went hunting Morrigan and when he'd come to Orzammar he would have been there to go with him-

"He wasn't answering his Calling," the leader for House Dace said.

What.

"Then what was he doing?" Alistair demanded.

"Lady Selda Dace wishes to see you on an urgent matter requiring your personal attention," the dwarf repeated, and refused to say more.

Zevran stared at the back of Alistair's head, _willing_ him to go speak with Lady Dace.

"Okay," Alistair said. "We're coming. You- House Helmi, right? You wanted to talk about Kal'Hirol? We'll come see you once we've spoken to Lady Selda. Tell-"

"Lady Runan Helmi," the lead dwarf provided.

"-Lady Runan that it would be _really_ helpful if she had the specifics about the _'unusual darkspawn activity'_ that we heard about, the one that's keeping her House from getting to Kal'Hirol. There, is everyone happy now?"

"Yes, Warden."

"Of course, Warden."

Alistair looked over his shoulder to check with Zevran. He managed to nod his head.

"Right. Lead on."

They followed the leader of House Dace's group down into the east Commons, towards the entrance to the Diamond Quarter. Zevran paused involuntarily when the path towards the Deep Roads entrance came into view.

"Come on," Alistair told him quietly, grabbing his arm. "We're going to get answers."

Five months was a long time in the Deep Roads- too long. What were you supposed to eat down there? Drink?

He hadn't forgotten Hespith.

Zevran hoped Theron had died before he'd cracked like that.

It seemed to take forever to get to the home of House Dace. By the time they were seated in Lady Selda's receiving room, his fingers ached from how tightly his fists were clenched and the inside of his mouth was bleeding where he'd bitten through it. He hadn't been this tightly-wound since he'd left the Crows.

"House Dace funded an expedition to the Deep Roads three months after the election of King Harrowmont," Lady Selda told them once the room had been vacated by everyone else and the door shut. "We arose to nobility from the warrior caste, and keep strong ties there. We often fund Deep Roads expeditions, but this one was the most ambitious of ours in decades. I had thought it would be worth it. A scholar had come recommended to us by House Helmi, Darion of House Olmech."

"House Helmi wanted to talk to us too," Alistair said. "You're friends with them?"

"We weren't before King Harrowmont's ascension," she said, with a tight smile. "House Helmi arose from the smith caste, and has never cared much for warriors. But we learned after Harrowmont had become king that he bought our votes with the same tract of rent rights in the Commons. I think he expected us to come to blows over it, but Lady Runan and I worked out a compromise. We'd split the rents evenly, and find a way to get back at Harrowmont. We decided to mount a secret attack on a weak spot of his- to succeed in something he'd failed at. He wears a crown from Paragon Caridin, but could not return the secret of making golems to our people."

Theron had been the one to make that decision, as he had done so many others. They'd told the honest truth of what Branka had done to her House, and how completely insane she'd been; but said she'd attacked Paragorn Caridin out of rage when he'd told her what had happened to Anvil of the Void. Caridin, the lie went, had destroyed the Anvil long ago, granted a miraculous life because of his great favor with the Ancestors for protecting their descendants so well. But he dearly wished to return to the Stone, and couldn't while there were still bits of the Anvil remaining. Theron and the others had supposedly found the last, missing pieces and- in a nice artistic touch that Zevran had been very proud of until just now- melted them down and reforged that metal into the new crown, putting the last of his life into its creation.

Now it all had come back to stab them in the back.

"That was meant to _stay_ lost," Alistair told her disapprovingly.

"We understand that now," Lady Selda said gravely. "Many of House Dace went on that expedition, following the research of Darion Olmech to find the way to Amgarrak thaig, whose smiths were said to have gotten the closest to creating golems before they mysteriously disappeared. We waited for three months for them to return, which is the longest a well-provisioned expedition of that size can realistically survive, so long as they eat and drink as little as possible and use the pack brontos for additional food."

Theron had been gone five months.

"One of my late father's cousins, Brogan, was with that expedition. Even after I declared the expedition dead and held the mourning period for them, his brother Jerrik refused to accept it. We had never revealed why the expedition was mounted in the first place, since it was meant to be a nasty surprise for King Harrowmont when it succeeded. He couldn't go to anyone in Orzammar and ask for their help without revealing what Lady Runan and I had planned. So when the Warden-Commander arrived, who'd survived a Blight and more than one trip in the Deep Roads-"

Alistair sighed heavily.

"He asked for his help," he said, and then muttered: "Maker's breath, Theron. That's _just like you._ "

It was just like him. He'd picked up every little request to find missing friends and family members they'd come across during their journeys to get the Warden treaties honored. They hadn't always found everyone they'd been asked to, but they'd always looked.

"We didn't know what Jerrik was planning until he was already gone," Lady Selda said. "He left a letter in his rooms. My uncle found it when he went to check on him. By then, they'd already been gone several days."

"Thank you for telling us," Alistair said. "Could you explain how to get to House Helmi from here? We've got another appointment to keep."

Lady Selda delegated a House servant to lead them where they were going, and Zevran walked through the Diamond Quarter behind her and Alistair in a fog.

Five months ago, Alistair had gotten back from Weisshaupt. If they'd just known _then,_ if they'd come immediately to Orzammar, maybe they could have been in time to catch Theron-

At House Helmi, they learned that Lady Runan was concerned about Kal'Hirol because there was a lot of unrest in Orzammar. The casteless felt cheated, and she had liberal elements in her own house that were incensed with the way Harrowmont was just getting more and more conservative as time wore on. Lady Runan wanted to provide an outlet for her House and the casteless that wasn't rebellion and intrigue, and thought that Kal'Hirol was the perfect way to do that. Reclaiming it would be counted as a miracle for the smith caste, and the dwarf who managed might even make Paragon status.

A Paragon could found a new city, which would need its own nobility and monarchy. A Paragon of House Helmi could become King of Kal'Hirol, and offer the casteless of Orzammar caste-status in the new kingdom for their services in reclaiming the thaig. The already-casted who contributed could be elevated to the new nobility.

It was how things had been done in the old days of the lost empire, and was the reason for the massive scattering of lost thaigs and cities- and the circuitous, unknown paths of the Deep Roads. In the days when there had been many Paragons, the dwarves had simply settled wherever they liked, not caring about defensibility or logical structure, because who could ever challenge dwarves underground?

It was a massive risk, especially since House Dace had already tried to gamble big and lost. Lady Runan was being as careful as possible up until the point where she had to commit everything, which was why she was paying such close attention to the Legion's reports.

There hadn't been in anything in them of any talking darkspawn, which was one good thing. But they'd been massing in odd places, bunching up from further in the Deep Roads and then scattering out laterally once they broke on the lines of the Legion.

It wasn't a Blight, the dwarves knew what that looked like. And it wasn't organized, they'd know that when they saw it, too.

It was just odd, and different.

' _Different'_ was never a good sign when it came to the Deep Roads.

The Legion didn't appear to need any help, and if they did they hadn't asked for it. There was only so much one Warden could do, and Alistair decided that the best course of action would be to go back to Vigil's Keep and tell the other Wardens about it. Caron wanted to fight darkspawn- fine, he could come help the Legion and leave Amaranthine alone for a little while.

Zevran let him make that decision without a word of input or protest. _He_ was decided- he'd return to the Vigil, and actually take the Joining. Then he'd come back here to the Deep Roads, with or without Caron, and go looking for Amgarrak thaig and Theron.


	7. Chapter 7

They exited the Diamond Quarter only to find that a great hue and cry had gone up in the Commons. The guards were holding a line up in the market, keeping the gathering crowd well away from the gates to the Diamond Quarter, and nervous-looking warriors had set up a second line behind that, across the top of the path down to the Deep Roads.

In the cleared space between the two groups stood a Legionnaire, helmet in hand, her angular face mask of tattooing stark and black against her skin under the strong light of Orzammar's magma flows.

"Wardens," she said. "You are needed at the Roads."

Maybe, Zevran thought, he wouldn't even have to go back to the Vigil first. Maybe they'd be going into the Deep Roads right now, and he could just… slip away.

They followed the Legionnaire down to the entrance, the warriors closing the path immediately behind them.

"What is it?" Alistair tried to ask her. "Did you find one that talks? We had a problem with those recently, and they're not worth listening to."

"We don't know if it talked," the Legionnaire said. "It's dead."

"Why do we need to see a dead darkspawn?"

Zevran didn't _care._

"It's a new thing," she said. "It doesn't look like darkspawn."

The thing was dead, and probably not darkspawn. Zevran looked at the awful fleshy tone of it, the unnatural positioning of arm-like limbs that had only hands, not feet; the long drooping tongue and the mockeries of eyes and nose and mouth that couldn't close and teeth that were all wrong-

Maybe this was why Theron hadn't come back. Theron had mown through darkspawn before, but this wasn't darkspawn.

"I really, _really_ hope these haven't been down there all this time and we just didn't know about it," Alistair muttered.

The Legionnaires weren't sure what to do with it. One of their patrols had found it already dead, partially decayed and mauled, in an area one of the recent massings of darkspawn had recently vacated, and dragged it back to the lines.

Alistair knelt down next to it. A strange expression crossed his face, and he leaned forward and… sniffed it?

If he was going to get so close and personal with this thing, then maybe Zevran could take this opportunity to slip away.

No such luck. Alistair pulled away from it almost immediately.

"Yep," he said around a cough. "There it is. _Wow,_ have I made better decisions in my life."

The Legionnaires were looking at him like he was crazy, and Zevran had to agree.

"Someone give me alcohol," Alistair said, holding out a hand. "Come on, you're all down here fighting the darkspawn until you die, _someone's_ got alcohol on them."

A large number of flasks and skins were hastily offered. Alistair grabbed the one closest to hand and down a large gulp.

Then he spent a good minute coughing and hacking as his eyes watered.

"Good stuff," he wheezed, and handed it back. "Good… strong. Good choice."

"Does being a Warden make you all lose your sodding _minds?_ " the Legionnaire who'd brought them down here demanded.

"I mean, darkspawn blood, technically delayed ghouls, I wouldn't put it past us," Alistair said. "But that thing? _Stinks_ of lyrium. Also darkspawn. But lyrium under that. Lots of it, and _processed._ "

"There's _no one_ mining and refining lyrium down there," another Legionnaire said. "Not for over thirteen hundred years. That _can't_ be."

"Don't ask me, I'm just telling you what I know."

"Then you're wrong."

"Hey," Alistair said, and put a finger to this nose. "This right here? Belongs to somebody who got close enough to being knighted a full Templar to get addicted to lyrium. And it's telling me I could _eat_ that thing and it would be the highest high I'd ever find. I probably wouldn't come down. I'd probably just die horribly, burn up from the inside, that sort of thing. Whatever it is, it's been around enough lyrium for long enough that it's the next best thing itself."

That was… concerning. Concerning enough that he actually cared to ask a question.

"Could lyrium exposure turn a darkspawn into this?" Zevran asked.

"I don't think so," Alistair said, standing. He nodded at the corpse. "Make a sketch of that and then drop it in a magma flow. If you keep it around for much longer I can't guarantee that it won't start affecting you."

The Legionnaires dragged it off, and Alistair leaned heavily against the wall once no one but Zevran was paying attention.

"Are you all right?" he asked. He knew something of what lyrium could do to people, and if it was as bad as Alistair said, then he'd probably want to go back to the surface right away. Zevran could accept that. He'd be coming back here soon regardless.

"Yeah," Alistair said. He didn't _sound_ all right. "I'm just going to… take a minute…"

He slumped even more against the wall, and dropped his chin against his chest. Zevran listened to him strictly regulate his breathing for a few minutes, keeping an eye on him just in case. Maybe _he_ had a death wish for the Deep Roads, but Alistair should have another three decades of life in him before his Calling. He deserved to get and enjoy every one of them.

Some of the other Legionnaires had noticed his condition.

"Strong stuff, huh?" one asked with a nervous smile.

"Hm," Zevran replied, trying to give the impression that they didn't desire company.

The Legionnaire scuttled off.

Alistair was standing up straight again when they heard the pounding of armored boots on stone. A Legionnaire shoved his way through the nearest set of heavy metal siege doors. There was a line of them from the entrance continuing for some miles, Zevran remembered, and they were Orzammar's last resort against the darkspawn in case of the Legion breaking. When not armed and locked, a toddler could push one open.

There was a horrific metal screeching sound as the doors opened, and it continued until they closed.

It wasn't the doors.

Something was coming up from the Deep Roads behind him.

The Legionnaires already present had their weapons out and were running for shields and helmets. This was too far up the Roads to expect an attack, and they'd been caught by surprise.

Zevran drew his knives, and Alistair fumbled with his shield.

The new Legionnaire stopped at the sight of so many of his fellows and two Wardens, leaning forward to brace himself on his knees. He was out of breath.

"What?" the woman who'd come to get them in Orzammar barked. "Legionnaire! _Report!_ "

"Dace," the Legionnaire panted. "House Dace. Back-"

He pointed to the doors, which swung open again.

It was a golem, different from any Zevran had seen before. Chains had been wrapped around its torso and under its arms to form a rough harness, and it was dragging some sort of massive black iron ball, even larger than it was, behind it, and then behind _that_ another one- the source of the awful screeching. The balls glowed blue in places, where growing spikes of lyrium had been broken off and worn down by constant abrading against the stone.

Alistair swore loudly and fervently, then threw up all over his boots.

"Hey!" a voice called from behind it. "Stop! _Stop!_ "

A dwarf, untattooed and so not a Legionnaire, ran through the doors behind it, waving his arms. The golem took another few slow, laborious steps so that the iron balls were safely in the center of the room before complying.

The dwarf propped his hands on his hips and blew out a breath before looking around. He brightened at what he saw.

" _Legionnaires,"_ he said. "You have _no idea_ how glad I am to see you and these siege doors."

"And _you_ are?"

"Dace," he said. "Jerrik Dace-"

Zevran sheathed his knives in one swift movement and was standing in front of him in an instant. He picked the dwarf up by the front of his leather armor and lifted him bodily off the ground- extremely taxing on the arms and also rude, but he was far past caring.

This was the man Theron had gone into the Deep Roads with. _He'd_ come out alive.

If it had been at the cost of Theron's life-

"The elf you took with you!" he demanded. "Theron Mahariel, the Warden-Commander of Ferelden-"

"Zevran."

He looked.

"Put him down," Theron said.

He was leading a bronto which had another dwarf balanced on his back. He seemed unhurt, though the green enamel of the ancient elven armor he'd found so long ago in the Brecilian Forest had long, deep scratches in it. He'd carried a shield and worn a helmet the entire time Zevran had known him, but now both were gone. So were his scabbard and sword belt, though he still held Duncan's old sword loosely by his side, the point almost dragging against the stone.

He looked drawn out- worn out. Starved, of food and sunlight. Haggard and dull-eyed like he hadn't been sleeping. He couldn't seem to keep his eyes focused.

Theron was _alive._

The Legionnaires may have gone for the Dace brothers, demanding answers, getting the one on the bronto off, leading the animal away. Runners might have been sent to tell Lady Dace her cousins had been found. Alistair might have simply perished from the sheer concentration of lyrium in the room. The Sixth Blight might have begun.

Zevran wouldn't have noticed. He was standing in front of Theron, cradling his face.

"You can let go of the sword now, _amora_ ," he said softly. "You are out. You are safe."

Theron's face was turned towards him, but his gaze was a million miles away as Zevran pried his fingers off the hilt of the sword that had served him to kill Loghain and the Archdemon.

The air the unfocus lent him was raising a numb terror in Zevran. Theron's resting expression always looked ineffably sad. The corners of his mouth naturally drooped downwards, his eyebrows naturally arched upwards, his cheekbones were high- all in all, the perfect example of _'a long face'_. Morrigan had always made comments about kicked puppies and Leilana had thought it made him look tragically earnest and heroic, but Zevran's first impression had been of someone as resigned to the unkindness of the world as he'd been. He had felt an immediate irrational kindred upon seeing him during that first ambush on the road, and he hadn't been able to find it in his heart to kill someone who looked as sick of life as he himself had felt then, or to force this man to be the one who killed him. He'd hoped the war hound, or maybe the knightly-looking blond one, would do it instead.

He had been proven- somewhat, mostly- happily wrong about Theron's attitude. He was almost unfailing polite, quite surprisingly so for a Dalish forced to live among humans. He was utterly pragmatic, sometimes in the most inconsistent ways- check every wild hollow and ancient chest and broken crate just in case there's something useful; but stuff your packs full of everything anyway because _someone_ somewhere would give you money for it. Buy every health potion and injury kit the merchants were offering; but always take a healer along so you'd never have to _use_ any of them. Kill all the demons and Abominations and blood mages you ran across without impunity; but anyone else was fair game for recruitment, even outright murderers. Outsiders got the chance to prove themselves decent, non-violent people and weren't totally trusted until they did; but anyone you knew was allowed just about anything.

He could be melancholy, and resigned; but he took it all with that grave, utterly unjoking Dalish fatalism Zevran hadn't been able to stand until it was Theron gazing off into the distance at nothing, despairing and refusing to let anyone know.

Those gazes weren't like this one. There was no thought behind this, no emotion.

"Theron?" he asked, trying not to let his voice break. He'd been lucid just moments before- what if that had been the last time? " _'Ma vhen'an_? _'Ma'len_?"

An unexpected glint of gold caught his eye. It was a thick gold loop in Theron's ear, with a tiny ruby drop suspended inside the curve. It was the earring Zevran had given to him to keep.

That piercing hadn't been there when he'd left for Antiva. He wondered when it had been done- how long he'd been wearing it.

Zevran brushed his fingers against it, and Theron blinked back into lucidity.

"Had nothing but potions for _days_ ," he mumbled, and then swayed forward, fainting over his love's shoulder.

Zevran could have _cried._

Maybe he did.

* * *

House Dace put them up in their best rooms over the strenuous objects of just about everyone, including King Harrowmont, who all wanted the honor of providing for the Grey Wardens who'd _actually met_ Paragon Cairidin.

But it was Daces Theron had saved in the Deep Roads, so Lady Selda had a debt to repay none of the others could ignore.

Jerrik Dace didn't pass out like Theron had, but he ended up sleeping almost a full day once he'd seen his brother Brogan into the care of the best healers his House could buy. Once he awoke, and had checked on his brother, he came and sat with Zevran and Alistair by Theron's bedside.

"Brogan, right?" Alistair had asked, because somehow he could focus on something that wasn't Theron's unconscious form. "How's he?"

"He wasn't doing that well when we found him," Jerrik said sadly. "He got a little better after we broke the lyrium wells, but then we dragged the blighted things out with us and it got worse. They saved our skins, I guess, but now he gets to live with lyrium poisoning."

"What _happened_ to you?" Alistair asked, and Zevran listened because he had to know. "I mean, I get it if you don't want to say, I've had plenty of experience with traumatizing events myself-"

"We found Amgarrak thaig," Jerrik told them, words slightly haunted. "The old smiths had asked a Magister to assist them. They'd manipulated the Fade and resorted to blood magic. There were demons and undead everywhere, and that _thing_ they made instead of a golem."

"' _Thing'_?"

Jerrik shuddered.

"Awful, skittering monster. I'd thought darkspawn were bad. They look like people at, least. The right number of hands. Joints in the right places. Mouths that close. _Eyes._ "

"Let me guess," Alistair said. "Unpleasantly fleshy-colored, great big teeth, droopy tongue?"

Jerrik winced.

"So some of them got up this far."

"The only one we saw was already dead. That's why we were down there. The Legion wanted a second opinion on the corpse they'd dragged out."

"What _was_ it?" Zevran asked. He didn't like the implication that there were _more_ of them. Darkspawn were bad enough, and Theron might want to go back down into the Roads to get the rest of them.

Theron wasn't going back into the Deep Roads until his Calling, as far as Zevran was concerned, and maybe not even then. He wasn't going to lose Theron to the dark and the stone.

"Brogan called it the Harvester," Jerrik told them. "They tried to make a golem out of living flesh and got _that_ instead. It was smart enough to turn their own magic against them, and- _harvested_ any bodies it could find to add to its own. Still breathing or not. We thought there was just the one- and the Commander killed it all by himself! My brother and I got knocked out early in the fight and the next thing we know he's shaking us awake as the thaig starts falling in! I'd thought we were all dead for sure!"

That sounded like the kind of danger Theron should have lived _without._

"We got out of there before it all came down," Jerrik continued. "But the collapse let out a bunch more of the things from somewhere, in a great swarm right behind us. The Commander was the only one with his head on right at that moment, and he got us all hidden in this little side blind until they'd all passed us by. Then he insisted on going back. We had to find a side way in, and then we broke the lyrium wells. There were a few Harvesters left down there, and the Fade got really strange once we'd done it, but the Harvesters in there just dropped dead. We figured- hoped- that it got the rest of them, too."

They could only hope that the corpse the Legion had dragged in had died with the lyrium wells, and then been mauled by the darkspawn after the fact.

"You were gone _five months,_ " Alistair reminded him. "How-"

"Weren't any darkspawn in Amgarrak. Not around it, either. The Commander figured it was the lyrium, which is part of why we dragged the blighted things along with us."

"He wanted to sell them once you returned here," Zevran murmured.

"Oh, so he's _usually_ like that? He poked around all the corners in Amgarrak too. Good for us in the end, I guess, since we found all the notes the smiths kept and could figure out what happened. But he stuffed the packs full of all _kinds_ of junk and picked up more on the way back from the Roads to _'fill the space the food left'_ -"

"What _did_ you eat?" Alistair interrupted, sounding morbidly fascinated.

Zevran wasn't sure he wanted to know. He had seen and heard many unsavory things in his life, but his time with Theron had taught him to draw strict lines wherever the darkspawn were concerned.

"He said it was _'the usual Dalish strategy for traveling in a hostile environment'_. Apparently you start from a safe source of food and water- Amgarrak for us- and load up with edibles. Then you go less than half as far as your supplies will allow you, and make a drop out of the other extra. You keep doing it until you've got a huge surplus at the drop. Then you station yourself out of the drop, and do it again from the supplies you stockpiled. Awful slow going, and we ran out earlier than was really good for us, but it got us back."

And there was the Dalish pragmatism. Oh, Theron- thank the Maker and the Creators they'd seen fit for him to be born among the clans.

"So it was potions, after the rest was used," Zevran said, remembering.

"He just kept taking them," Jerrik said, sounding a bit in awe of it still. "Stamina potions, eating the health poultices, chewing on the leafy bits of the injury kits. Brogan and Snug and I, we could survive on the few deepstalkers we found, and giant spiders are mostly fluid when you get down to it-"

They'd eaten _giant spider._

Zevran shivered in disgust, and Alistair made a little choking sound.

It oculd have been worse. They could have gone like Hespith.

"-but it wasn't enough for the Commander."

"It's a Warden thing," Alistair told him. "We eat a lot."

"He tried not to. There was so little we could have, but he was actively starving when the rest of us were just never full and malnourished. I think he thought I didn't notice. He acted like there was nothing wrong."

Jerrik paused.

"It was a good thing the darkspawn hated those lyrium wells enough that we never even saw any from a distance," he said. "We wouldn't have been able to fight them off, not even when the Commander was going a bit manic from all the stamina potions. That wore off- I don't know. A week ago, maybe. You lose all sense of time once you're down there long enough. I thought he'd turned into the walking dead."

He looked at Zevran.

"Telling you to put me down was the first coherent thing he'd said in _days._ "

* * *

"Did I imagine you calling me _'ma'len_?"

Magma flows never set, so Orzammar never truly got dark. The dwarves didn't put windows in their bedrooms, though, so they could be left pitch black, or dimly illuminated with a shuttered lantern.

Zevran reached out in the soft gray light and took Theron's hand.

"No, _'ma'len_."

"Do you know what that means?"

"I do," Zevran promised. "I learned some El'vhen from my Antivan Dalish misadventure, and Alistair and I wintered in Ostagar with Ashalle and Lanaya, searching for news of you. I have had plenty of practice."

"You came looking for me?"

"You have been missing a long time, Theron."

"I didn't…" he said, starting to drift off again. "It doesn't feel like it."

"It was. Many months. Everyone was worried about you."

He smoothed Theron's hair down.

"Sleep, and dream of happy things. I will not leave you."

"Dreams…" Theron said. "I thought of you. In the Roads. _About_ you. Your name isn't Antivan. Doesn't sound right. Antiva, Salle, Rialto. Rinna. Taliesin. Asha, Claudio, Luis."

"So? Antiva City is a very cosmopolitan place. Many tongues are used there."

" _Zevran."_

"A good assassin does not let any of his skills go unpracticed."

"Dalish mother," Theron insisted. "Elvhen name. _Shem'len_ couldn't say it."

To his own surprise, he chuckled.

"Since when do you call people _'shem'len'_ , my dear?"

"When they can't get your name right," Theron told him. That cross tone was adorable when he was foggy from trying to stay awake. "You know her name?"

Zevran paused. The Crows had made him forget it, and all he had had for so long was the name of the brothel that he'd spent his childhood in.

When he'd been in Antiva last, thought, he'd made a point to rediscover it, in Rialto's city records. It was important.

"Nina Rivasina," he told Theron.

"Revasina," Theron said. "Clan name. Nina… Nehna. Means _'joy'_. Satheraan Nehna Revasina."

"That is a Dalish name, _'ma'len_ ," Zevran said quietly.

"Yours," Theron murmured. "Satheraan- Saveran- Zevran- means _'many pleasant dreams'_. Satheraan son of Nehna of Clan Revasina."

He dropped back into sleep, point made.

"Oh, _amora,_ " Zevran whispered, turning the name over in his mind. Satheraan Nehna Revasina. "The things you do for me."

* * *

Amazingly, Orzammar was even duller and more frustrating than Ostagar. In Ostagar, there had been rubble to help move, builders who wanted descriptions of how the Fereldan army had used the fortress, elves who wanted to try their skill at arms against the _shem'len_ Warden guest of Clan Vhadan'ena. They'd been _'honored guests'_ there too, but the Dalish saw nothing wrong with having their visitors contribute to the daily goings-on of life.

In Orzammar, _'honored guest'_ apparently meant _'cloistered sister'_. They were allowed to leave the building- not that Zevran ever did, fretting over Theron in a way that Alistair was honestly a little scared and uncomfortable to see- but a group of Dace guards would follow him everywhere, and stand there looking intimidating whenever he tried to have a nice, normal, friendly conversation with some merchants or something. And he wasn't even allowed to get near Dust Town and help the city guards out by ousting some of the Carta.

The only place the House guards wouldn't follow him was to the surface, so that was where Alistair ended up spending most of his free time. The Frostbacks in late Drakonis were nice and cool and clear, with a sun that _just_ warmed you as it hung in the sky, which was brilliantly blue on clear days. Mostly, he played fetch with Fen'harel- and now that he'd learned some more about the Dalish he also spent time idly wondering what Theron had been thinking when he'd named his mabari- who had been locked up in a room in House Dace to keep him from running off into the Deep Roads after Theron. The war hound was in serious need of exercise.

Being on the surface also gave both of them to opportunity to get that exercise in a way they'd grown used to when they'd been wandering around Ferelden- as vigilante bandit-hunters. They couldn't go any further than half a day's walk, or a ride if there was a merchant who didn't mind have their horse borrowed, because Fen flatly refused not to be back at House Dace once night settled in so he could sleep in Theron's bed, but it was still something.

Every day he exited the gates of Orzammar, Alistair guilty considered sending a letter with a caravan to Vigil's Keep. But Theron had recovered yet, and the healers still weren't sure how the ingestion of so many potions in such a short time, and the poultices and injury kit herbs that _weren't_ meant to be eaten, had affected him. The couple of times he'd woken up, he'd stayed lucid enough for a short conversation, but they were worryingly few and far between. Mostly he stayed sleeping- or unconscious, because no one had to sleep _that_ much, no matter _what_ they'd been though. The retained healers and Zevran had to carefully pour soup spoonful by spoonful down his throat so he didn't starve the rest of the way.

It weirded Alistair out a _lot_ to see Zevran being so attentive in a way that didn't involve the possibility of sex later. It was a large contributing factor to his own decisions about bandit-hunting. At least the way he spent his time was obviously productive. There were a lot less bandits around now that word had gotten around that a Grey Warden with a mabari was making regular patrols of the roads around Orzammar, so the surface market guards had been freed up to crack down more on pickpockets and scammers.

Of course, a lot of people probably thought he was Theron. But Alistair could happily live with that. A mabari meant a Fereldan, and the better people thought of the Fereldan Grey Wardens, the better. Thinking of the lies Loghain had spread still stung.

When Theron woke up long enough to eat real food, he promised himself every few days, _then_ he'd send a letter to Vigil's Keep. If Caron heard that Theron had been found, and was also conveniently unable to stand trial, he might hold the court martial _in absentia_.

Oghren and the others would just have to manage on their own a little bit longer.


	8. Chapter 8

The sudden appearance of the Templars had spooked everyone. Anders went back to sleeping in the hospital tent. The soldiers who left with Voldrik to protect the dwarf as he drew up plans for a rebuilt Amaranthine were looked on with some envy by their fellows, even though they would be the ones riding out the last few storms of the season right on the coast without walls to protect them. The elves had gotten jumpy enough, Velanna included, that she held the founding ritual of her new clan up two entire days early so that she could move everyone out of the tent city on Wintersend.

The day after, Nathaniel went into the Wardens' registers and changed the Arl-Commander's entry of _'Velanna of the Dalish'_ to _'Velanna Seranni'ma'lin Ena'elan, Keeper of Clan Velanna of the Dalish'_.

Oghren came along with him to watch the hallway as Nathaniel made the change. As Constable of the Grey in Ferelden, he _was_ allowed to update the Wardens' records- required, even- but if Caron came by it would be questions and no one wanted to deal with that.

"Hey."

Nathaniel looked up. Now that Velanna's name had been corrected, he'd moved on to the assignments and duties roster. The last couple of months had been quite dull- lines and lines of _'patrolling the territory'_ \- and it made him feel oddly satisfied to unscrew the bottle of red ink used to indicate long-term reassignments and enter Velanna as _'monitoring the Wending Wood in residence'_.

"Is he coming?"

"No," Oghren said. "I just- well you've got the sodding book out already, don't you? I want some stuff changed."

The metal nib of the pen was hovering over the roster, and Nathaniel quickly blotted it on the stained scrap cloth so the paper wouldn't get splotched.

"Only if it's legal," he said, and Oghren snorted.

"Bit late to be developing a sense of morals now, ain't it, boy?" he said. "Nah, it's legal. The Commander asked what I wanted my name as in the book, and I told him _'just Oghren'_. But I've been thinking about it. Put me in as _'Oghren of House Kondrat'_."

"I thought her name was-"

"It ain't about my crazy ex-wife! I was _born_ into House Kondrat, and when Branka got made Paragon we got folded into her House! Now they're all dead but me, and the Shaperate can keep its sodding records until the mountains fall down for all I care! I'm a surfacer dwarf and they can't do a sodding _thing_ about it if I say House Kondrat ain't extinct!"

"Oghren," Nathaniel said. "I get it. I'm the last Howe, too."

The dwarf calmed.

"Really?"

"Arl-Commander Mahariel killed my father," he said. "You knew that, but I had two siblings. My mother died giving birth to the younger one, Thomas. Thomas ran away from our father after he killed the Couslands and went to serve our uncle Leonas- Arl Bryland of South Reach. He was killed fighting darkspawn sometime after Ostagar. Delilah-"

He had to take a moment before he continued.

"The Orlesians found her letters when they were clearing out rooms to take," Nathaniel said. "She'd met this storekeeper. Albert. She ran away to elope with him. No one else knew. He- he lived in Amaranthine."

There was nothing that could be said to that, not really.

"I'm gonna ask Sigrun," Oghren said after Nathaniel had replaced the records.

"Ask her what?"

"I was thinking about it already," he said. "But I just decided. Hard to have a House with only one person, and she was born casteless. She wasn't allowed to have a House. But the Shaperate don't rule under the sun. I'm gonna ask her to be House Kondrat with me. Mebbe we'll be the last two, Ancestors only know. But at least Kondrat will go out with two Wardens. Hard to beat that."

"Felsi and your daughter aren't Kondrats?" Nathaniel asked as they left. "Wives don't take their husband's House?"

"You get the caste of yer father if you're a son and yer mother if you're a daughter, and the House to go with it unless the higher House says otherwise," Oghren explained, and then a smile started to spread slowly across his face. "But them's the Shaperate's rules, and-"

"-the Shaperate don't rule under the sun," Nathaniel said with him. "It couldn't hurt to ask."

"Yeah," Oghren said. "Yeah, I will."

The next week, Nathaniel went back into the records with the dwarf Wardens for company, and let Sigrun change _'Sigrun of the Legion of the Dead'_ to _'Sigrun of House Kondrat (Legion of the Dead)'_ with her own hand.

Things got better, or they seemed too. Caron was rarely seen, even around the Keep, apparently still nursing his pride. Winter was starting to truly end, and took the season's diseases with them. Anders got a break, and it was easier to hunt for everyone now that things were beginning to turn green again and there were less people overall to feed. Weapons lessons that couldn't be easily held in the snow or mud were taken up under the sun, behind the sheltering blind of tent rows, and Sigrun pronounced five of her students _'reasonably literate'_.

They had a party, and the Voshai came. They provided drumming for the dancing, and new dances to show everyone. They were wild, spinning, stomping things, much more complicated than they looked, but they were fun to mess up.

It looked like they were going to get through Guardian without any troubles, but then one of the soldiers who'd gone with Voldrik to Amaranthine came riding back to the Vigil, and Nathaniel and Garavel had to take his report to Caron.

"' _Something spooky'_ ," the Senior Warden said disbelievingly.

"That's what he said, Acting Commander," Garavel confirmed. "And if he says that's what's going on, that's what's going on. There isn't a soldier in this keep who hasn't been blooded on darkspawn at least once. Noises in the night wouldn't do this."

Caron scowled, and Nathaniel was sure they were going to be given the same little speech about it not being Grey Warden business.

"Send the soldier back and tell him to move that dwarf and the others out," he ordered Garavel. "I'll send in a group to investigate."

They both stared at him, astonished.

"Of… Wardens?" Garavel asked carefully.

"Yes, _of Wardens,_ " Caron said testily, and Garavel left hastily.

Nathaniel couldn't believe it- no, no, wait, he could. This made sense. The Templars had assumed he was working on rebuilding Amaranthine, and he wasn't. The Chantry itself had told him, in a completely unintentional and passive-aggressive sort of way, to get to work.

Plus, if they _didn't_ get Our Lady Redeemer back, eventually they'd move into Vigil's Keep. And by Caron's own rules, the Vigil was home only for Wardens.

It _almost_ made him want to like those Templars.

He happily imparted the news to the others, and they waited for the Orlesians to be sent out.

Then, Caron came to find him.

"The apostate and the Abomination are going to Amaranthine," he said. "And don't give me any shit about it- I _know_ you warned them when the Templars came! Everyone else in your little cadre was watching them, and me! _You_ pressured me to do something about Amaranthine; then _your_ people can go take a look around and tell that dwarf he's as touched as his brother for believing in _'something spooky'_!"

* * *

"No," Anders said, when Nathaniel came to tell him. "No. No. No. Absolutely not."

"I can't get you out of this one, Anders," he said. "I'm sorry."

"I won't!" Anders declared. "Since the soldiers started coming around, I've snuck up into the Vigil to treat their sniffles and sprains when things are quiet down here, and Alec came by and told me who Caron picked to go to Amaranthine! They're all from his little group- it's all those Templars, and some of the Chantry diehards!"

"You're all Wardens-"

"Because that means _so much._ "

Well, all right. He had a point with that one. And it wasn't just Caron and his group- they might have started it, kind of, but him and Anders and Oghren and the others were just as guilty. There wasn't a lot of unity going around Vigil's Keep.

"They're not going with you to drag you back to the Circle."

"No," Anders said. "They're just going to get rid of us. You watch, Nathaniel, Justice and I will ride out with them, and _they'll_ be the only ones who come back. We'll have conveniently been lost to some stray darkspawn raiding group or ridden off a cliff or something!"

"You're being paranoid," Nathaniel told him. "You'll come back right in time for all the _spring_ sicknesses, and then Oghren and Sigrun will have to drag you to bed at night and feed you soup when you finally collapse out of exhaustion and catching the same things your patients have."

"I am _not,_ " Anders snapped. "You don't know what people like that are like!"

When Caron's men were saddled up at the Vigil's gates, Nathaniel was there to make sure Anders got up on his own mount to go with them.

"Watch him," he told Justice as Anders fiddled miserably with his reins. The walking corpse was wearing Voshai leathers, not Warden armor, but no one had called him on it. The Orlesians seemed to be doing their best to keep from looking at him at all. "He's got a duty to do, and don't let him get distracted from it."

"I shall not," Justice promised, just as the mission leader snapped: "Get that _blighted cat_ out of your _shirt!_ "

"This cat has been in the Deep Roads!" Anders declared. "This cat has fought darkspawn!"

" _Grey Wardens_ don't keep _pets!_ Get rid of that cat or I'll do it for you!"

"Anders," Nathaniel told him quietly. "This isn't worth it. Pass Ser Pounce down. I'll watch him for you until you get back."

Anders sighed in resignation.

"Take good care of him," he said sadly. "Don't let him misbehave! If he's been mousing, he's not allowed to get meal scraps too! He'll get fat!

"I will," Nathaniel promised. "I'll remember. Go on."

Anders, Justice, and the Orlesian Wardens rode out.

Four days later, the same soldier who'd come to report the _'something spooky'_ from Amaranthine rode back. He sought out Oghren, Nathaniel, and Sigrun in the tent city instead of going up to the Keep.

The Wardens had stopped in Voldrik and the solders' camp just outside the old Amaranthine outskirts to leave their horses, and gone into the ruins on foot to take a look for the _'something spooky'_. They hadn't returned for dinner, or at any time during the night, so in the morning some of the soldiers had been detailed to go look for them.

" _Get horses,"_ Nathaniel told Oghren and Sigrun through clenched teeth. "And- and whatever Voshai are still at their camp."

That wasn't a tone to argue with.

"Don't report to the Vigil until dinner," Nathaniel ordered the soldier. If they left as soon as possible, he and Oghren and Sigrun and the Voshai could make it to Voldrik's camp by nightfall, or soon after. Dinner would be too late for Caron to set out with the arling in the state it was until the next morning, and they'd have most of the day to see what had happened in Amaranthine- and draw their _own_ conclusions, without any interference from _Gerod sodding Caron._ " _That's_ when you got here, you understand me? _Not_ right now."

* * *

In a way, Nathaniel was glad that Arl-Commander Mahariel's preferred mission group had been Oghren, Anders, and Sigrun. At first he'd thought it a gesture of mistrust, then one of dismissal, then he'd realized that the Arl-Commander had been leaving him behind because he didn't have the sort of training Nathaniel had gotten all his life in how to run a land holding. He was good at people- not so much at administration.

By the time Arl-Commander Mahariel had been called to Amaranthine, Nathaniel hadn't even thought to ask to be included. He'd known full well that he was needed at the Vigil, organizing. He was glad he hadn't been there to witness the command to put the city to the torch.

He understood the logic. But seeing a place he'd grown up knowing so totally gutted by fire, the remnants of the distinctive wood diamond patterning of the wall overhangs charred black and the stone foundations of the houses burned clean of walls above knee height and no floors covering the basements, cut deep.

The walls were in much better condition than he'd thought they were, at least. Riding up to Amaranthine, he could pretend that nothing much had changed.

Anders and the Orlesians were on the upper level of the city, right before the stairs up to the ruins of Our Lady Redeemer. The area bore marks of a new, recent fire- a blast that had blackened metal and burned away leather and rendered the corpses unidentifiable but for what remained of their armor.

The only corpse without metal plates- mage armor, then- was backed into corner between Chantry stairs and wall, the others forming a semi-circle that blocked all exits except for up. There were dropped Warden swords with them. One of the Voshai who had come with them, Rhannur, picked one up and matched it perfectly with the only discernible wound on the corpse in mage armor- a hard, deep blow to the head.

 _Templar Hunters,_ Nathaniel thought, remembering Reland, and then: _Andraste. I'm so sorry I didn't listen to you, Anders. I'm so sorry._

Oghren- Oghren who'd been in the Deep Roads, Oghren who'd faced down a Blight army, Oghren who'd had field command more times than any of them knew- sat him down at the top of the steps to the lower level of Amaranthine, facing away from the carnage.

" _Right!"_ he heard the dwarf say loudly to the others. "Voldrik and those silver boys from the Vigil said there was something spooky going on here, and we're gonna find out what, and then we're gonna make it run cryin' to its blighted Ancestors, 'cause we're Grey Wardens and there ain't a thing under or over Stone that's spookier than _us!_ "

Sigrun made a very capable second-in-command for him, Nathaniel noted distantly. And the Voshai, all three of them, let them take the lead easily, relaxed in a way that spoke of long campaigners.

In fact, _he_ seemed to be the only one not functioning right now.

Oghren sent Rhannur and Andreas off together to take a look around the lower half of the city, and Sigrun and Mequi to take a look at the rest of the upper half. Then he sat down on the stairs next to Nathaniel, companionably silent.

"Anders knew," Nathaniel said, after a very long time. "He _knew_ they were going to try to kill him and Justice. He told me, and I told him he was being paranoid, and he had to go. I told him he was _coming back._ "

"Sometimes you tell a man that and it doesn't turn out true," Oghren told him. "And it ain't your fault."

"It _feels_ like it."

"Well it ain't."

They sat in continued silence. It had been dawn when they'd left Voldrik's camp, well-hidden away from the main road to avoid the attention of any roving bandit groups, and the sky was still the warm pink and gold of a Chantry sister's robes. They watched as it faded into light blue. It seemed like it would be a wonderful spring day.

"He died fryin' Templars," Oghren said. "It's how he woulda wanted to go out. No Deep Roads and darkspawn for him."

It was, but it didn't make Nathaniel feel any better.

There were footsteps behind them.

"Oghren?" Sigrun asked. "We found the spooky thing. The city- the Stone here remembers, like in Kal'Hirol."

"Sod it," Oghren grumbled, standing. "How're we supposed to get rid of _that?_ "

"Ghosts," an unfamiliar, accented voice said. It had to be Mhequi. "Ghosts want to be seen. Be known. We watch, they go."

"It ain't more complicated than that?"

"Stone remembers," Mhequi said gravely. "We remember; it forgets."

"Yer the crazy lyrium smoking lady, so I guess we're listening to you. Do the boys know about this?"

"Are Voshai."

"Right," he grunted. "They're down there watching and remembering while we're wasting time blabbering about it, ain't they? You two go finish off the upper level. I'll get up to the Chantry. Why humans _love_ hiding from danger in great big heaps of sodding _wood_ I'll never understand."

Oghren clomped up the stairs to the Chantry, and Sigrun and Mhequi moved off more quietly. Nathaniel was left alone, not thinking of much at all.

The only way he knew he'd blanked out was because when he jolted aware at some noise, the sun was fully over the horizon. None of the others had returned yet.

The noise was Caron, shifting the remains of brigandine and plate as he attempted to find something to identify the individual corpses.

"Clement," he muttered, finally finding some Chantry medal or keepsake or other that he knew. "No, _ami,_ you _idiot-_ it was the _Abomination_ we couldn't have, not the apostate-"

Caron must have done what Nathaniel hadn't expected him to, and ridden through the night from Vigil's Keep to get here. He couldn't even have stopped to look for Voldrik and the soldiers to get some breakfast.

He had to have walked right past him, completely ignoring him after he hadn't reacted to his passage.

Caron's back was to him, bent over the corpse. Nathaniel rolled silently to his feet, dagger drawn, and slit the Senior Warden's throat in easy movement. Gerod Caron pitched forward, dead.

After comparing skills, Zevran Arainai had told him that, in his professional opinion as a former Crow, Nathaniel was good enough to kill someone who wasn't expecting to be killed.

Months later he still hadn't figured out if that was a veiled insult or an actual compliment, but now he'd finally assassinated someone. It wasn't the Commander he'd come to Ferelden to find, but it was one who deserved it a lot more.

Oghren came back down the stairs in a jangling of plate and chainmail and armored boots. For a moment, Nathaniel considered trying to run.

"This place has waterfront, don't it?" he asked. "Out the high gates or something? The Commander only ever used the low ones, and we never saw the docks that way."

Nathaniel nodded mutely.

"You take his arms," Oghren ordered. "I'll take his legs. Let's find out how long Warden plate floats."

* * *

In Vigil's Keep, the Wardens' roster read:

 _Anders. Killed in battle, Emissary. 29_ _th_ _day of Guardian, 9:33._

 _Justice. Killed in battle, Emissary. 29_ _th_ _day of Guardian, 9:33._

 _Gerod Caron. Missing, declared dead, presumed bandit ambush. 2_ _nd_ _day of Drakonis, 9:33._


	9. Chapter 9

On the very last day of Drakonis, when the healers were about ready to give up hope, Theron woke up and stayed that way for half an hour. Zevran shoved food at him, and hovered worriedly. Fen'harel barked and hopped and wagged his stumpy little mabari tail enough to tire himself into an early nap.

Alistair used the opportunity afforded by Theron eating, and unable to say anything, to yell at him for the entire half-hour. He'd gotten as far as _'you should have sent a note from Ostagar telling us where you were going to look for Morrigan'_ when Theron dropped off again sitting up.

"I wasn't done," he threatened his unconscious friend. "When you wake up, there'll be more! A lot more! So much more you'll wish it was Oghren singing drunk again!"

"Have you ever heard him sing sober?" Zevran asked.

"No, but it couldn't possibly be worse!"

There _was_ more yelling. A lot more yelling. Alistair finally finished a couple of days later.

" _Well?"_ he demanded, out of breath. "What have you got to say for yourself?"

"I'm sorry," Theron said. "I thought that Amaranthine would be happier without me for a couple of months, and then I just kept running from my problems, and only found more."

"That's right you did! You _should_ be sorry! You're going back to Vigil's Keep and I'll knock Caron onto his ass off the battlements even without you asking me to, but you're going to be Arl-Commander again and if you try to slip off again I'll- I'll ride back to Ostagar and tell Ashalle on you! And then I'll go to Kinloch Hold and tell Wynne! And then-"

He couldn't come up with anything else. He didn't know any other motherly sorts of people that Theron would listen to.

"I'll think of something else to do about it!"

Zevran lifted one of Theron's hands to his lips.

"You are never allowed to go anywhere without me again, _'ma vhen'an_ ," he murmured. "And I will never go anywhere without you."

" _I'll tell Zevran!"_ Alistair decided, because Theron might run out on Ashalle and Wynne, but he cared about Zevran too much to do the same to him.

"Ah, Alistair, my old friend," Zevran said. "You seem to be laboring under the terrible misconception that _I_ would not be the one helping him to escape, so that I would finally have my chance to whisk him away to foreign lands and indoctrinate him in the ways of debauchery and devilish scoundrelry."

Annoyingly, Alistair found that Zevran had been right. He _had_ been concerned about the man when he'd stopped making absurd comments and puns full of innuendo.

"I hate you," he told them. "Just so you know."

Fen whined piteously.

"Oh, not _you,_ " Alistair sighed."I could never hate a dog."

Fen barked happily.

* * *

Theron was fit to ride by mid-Cloudreach. He still wasn't really recovered, but two weeks of being awake the whole day and eating properly had done a lot for him.

Still, Alistair kept a close eye on him on the road.

Thankfully he had help with that. A very nervous surfacer merchant stopped Alistair in the market one day and asked if the Warden-Commander also wanted the massive quantities of lyrium he'd heard about transported with the rest of the shipment going to Vigil's Keep?

" _What_ other lyrium?"

Why, Dworkin Glavonak's sand for his explosives experiments, and the odd bunch of regular dust he'd asked for this time around, too.

"Theron, we've got a dwarf who makes _lyrium explosives_ staying at Vigil's Keep?"

The surfacer merchant did end up contracted to transport the lyrium recovered from Amgarrak, but only after Jerrik Dace turned down Theron's offer to take some of it as recompense for his ordeal. He said he'd had enough of lyrium for his entire life, but if the Wardens could make some use of it, they should take it.

Theron generously left the _magic-using golem_ they'd brought out the Deep Roads to the joint custody of Houses Helmi and Dace, _'for study, and the march to Kal'Hirol'_.

"It's never spoken, Alistair. I don't think it was ever alive. If the Helmi smiths can figure out how the smiths of Amgarrak made it, then the dwarves will stop searching. No one will ever try killing dwarves to make golems again if they already have a working method."

"Okay, one- I don't believe that, people are awful. Two- when this inevitably backfires on us horribly, Theron, I'm blaming _you._ And just _where_ are we going to safely store like, an _entire ton_ of lyrium!"

"We have an entrance to the Deep Roads in the basement no one is supposed to go near. And the darkspawn really don't like large concentrations of it."

"We live _right on top of that._ "

"It's harder to steal if we're sitting on it."

"This is a horrible idea, Theron. You understand that I won't be able to live in Vigil's Keep, right?"

"We have a mountain fortress," Theron reminded him. "We need someone to be in command of Soldier's Peak. It would be hard to do from Vigil's Keep, and as Arl-Commander I should try to stay there more."

"You can't just _put me in charge of things!_ "

"You have a problem with taking authority," his friend told him. "I didn't start out supporting Arl Eamon's idea instead of your wishes because I wanted to country to fall apart, Alistair. If you'd wanted to take the job, I think you could have been a good king. I _know_ you'll be a good Warden-Captain."

"We only have forty or so Wardens in the entire country," Alistair pointed out. "There's no one for me to be Captain _over._ "

"There will be."

Houses Helmi and Dace announced their joint expedition to retake Kal'Hirol the same day Theron, Alistair, and Zevran left with the lyrium merchant's caravan. Personally, Alistair was glad for the timing. He really didn't want to see if Helmi and Dace had managed to turn Orzammar into a riot of epic proportions.

Cloudreach was a good time to go traveling in Ferelden. The country really came into its own in the spring, between the rains of late winter and the humid heat that stank up the cities so badly in summer, and could destroy an unlucky farmer's livelihood with an chance strike of lighting from one of the big seasonal thunderstorms. In spring, the sky was clear, the weather was mild, and best of all, _it didn't rain._

It took the rest of the month to get to the arling, and Vigil's Keep. Caravans were slow things, and Alistair and Zevran were enforcing a low profile that Theron didn't seem to mind much. _He_ was mostly left to continue recuperating on cushions in the back of a merchant's covered cart, while Alistair and Zevran rode with the guards. They still wore their Grey Warden armor, but the hope was that everyone would assume they were more Wardens come as reinforcement from Orlais.

The one really stop they did make was at Kinloch Hold, because the lyrium merchant covered for his semi-legitimate contract with Dworkin by also doing completely legal business with the Circle. The three of them went out to Kinloch Hold to drop in on Wynne for a happy visit, and also to secretly glean the Circle's information on lyrium.

"If that is what you want," Wynne told them in amusement. "Then there is someone familiar you will want to talk to."

She sent them down to the enchantment areas, filled with Tranquil and one vaguely familiar dwarf woman, who gasped in excitement when she saw them.

"Grey Wardens!" she said excitedly. "Oh, Wardens- _the_ Grey Wardens, oh! You probably don't remember me, I'm Dagna, I-"

Alistair _did_ remember her now.

"We need to know about lyrium," Theron told her, and she happily chattered on and on about it, and even gave them papers and studies to take with them. She promised to write to Vigil's Keep with more information.

At least the stop, and the pace, gave them time to fix up Theron's armor from the months spent in the Roads. By the time they got to the approach to the Vigil, the enamel had been redone, the stitching replaced, and the metal shined.

The tent city came into view, and Theron stopped dead at the sight.

"It _is_ big, no?" Zevran remarked quietly to him. "Do not worry. I will be watching for you."

"It's smaller than when we left," Alistair said. "I guess it's because Velanna took off so many for her clan. But it still feels like it should be bigger."

He hoped it hadn't all been attrition from disease, if for no other reason than it would make Theron feel bad about burning Amaranthine again.

The caravan was moving up the approach without them. Theron nudged his horse into moving again, and the three of them took the lead.

Dworkin was waiting outside the edge of the tent city for them, impatiently tapping his foot.

"I've been waiting _weeks_ for this shipment!" he yelled. "You've never been late before- what, did the King die again? Is _that_ why you've got these Wardens-"

He got a good look at the three of them and sputtered momentarily.

"Warden-Commander!" he exclaimed.

"Hello, Dworkin," Theron said. "How have your experiments been going?"

"Very well, very promising-" Dworkin floundered, still surprised; and then gave up and turned to face the tents.

" _The Arl-Commander is back!"_ he bellowed. _"Somebody run and get Oghren and Howe!"_

"Oghren and Howe?" Alistair muttered to Zevran, who could only offer a shrug. It was nice they weren't being made to face Caron right away, but he didn't think that Oghren and Nathaniel Howe were going to help Theron's threatening court martial much.

People swarmed into the empty spaces between tents, and the area was filled with the low uproar of excitement.

Sigrun was the first to get to them, people making a path or getting shoved out of the way as she barreled up to them.

"Commander! Commander!" she said excitedly. "You're back! We were so worried-"

" _Theron, you sodding tree-hugging Dalish excuse for a commanding officer!"_ Oghren roared over everyone else, and the crowd hurriedly parted for him as he stomped over. _"Where in the Paragons' names have you been!"_

"Mostly the Deep Roads," Theron said. "It was a rescue mission."

Oghren threw up his hands in disgust, and then slapped Theron's knee. It was the easiest part to reach when he was sitting on a horse.

"All by _yourself?_ By the Stone, man, you're crazier than my ex-wife. You're lucky to be alive!"

"I know."

"Just because you killed an Archdemon don't make you invincible!"

"Where's everyone else?" Alistair butted in to ask. "From the camp, I mean. They can't _all_ have gone to the Dalish clan."

"Rebuilding on Amaranthine's finally got started," Oghren told him. "Nathaniel had the bright idea of offering anyone who volunteered to do grunt work or contribute their skilled labor first pick of the land inside the city walls. And they might be expanding the walls, too. Voldrik had some choice words about the whole set-up once he started making plans."

Nathaniel arrived accompanied by Vigil's Keep soldiers, familiar in their silverite armor with the Amaranthine bear prowling on the chestplate. He was carrying a shield with a protective cover on it.

"Welcome home, Arl-Commander," he greeted Theron formally. "As appointed Acting Constable of the Grey, I regret to inform you that Acting Commander Gerod Caron went missing at the beginning of last month, and has been declared dead."

He didn't _sound_ too regretful about it. Alistair hadn't spent a lot of time with Caron, but the little he had coupled with the stories that had been passed on left him not feeling very regretful either.

"Oh?" Zevran asked. He had his eyebrow raised, for some reason.

"We've had to assume it was an ambush by bandits," Nathaniel said. "He went riding on the Pilgrim's Path by night, during a period where the roads had been left mostly unchecked by patrols."

"How unprofessional of him," Zevran said mildly.

Theron was looking around.

"Where are Anders and Justice?"

The three Wardens in front of them went somber, suddenly.

"There went with a group of Or- other Wardens to check out a report of something strange in the ruins of Amaranthine," Sigrun said. "They- they're all dead."

When Theron looked sad, he looked _really_ sad. Alistair hadn't met Anders or Justice- and thought that he probably would have been pretty freaked out about the spirit, so maybe that was a good thing- but they'd been some of Theron's people, and he had first-hand experience of how Theron felt about things like that.

"There is more to this story," he heard Zevran whisper to Theron. "I do not think they wish to tell it in front of an audience."

Theron glanced over at him in acknowledgement.

"Constable Howe," he said, tilting his head towards the covered shield. "Is that for me?"

"Ah, yes," Nathaniel said, brightening a little. "A _'welcome home'_ gift, from all of us. I notice you haven't got a shield on you now, so maybe this it's even a well-timed one?"

"It is," Theron told him, and reached out to take the offered present. He pulled the cover off.

It was dragonbone, which probably meant someone had gone to that man Wade for it. The bone had been bleached white and quartered with woodsy gold enamel inlays so it laid flush. It wasn't quite the conventional shade of Amaranthine's colors, but it satisfied the heraldry standards.

In the top right quarter, one of the white ones, Wade had inlaid a deer's head in profile- no, it was a halla, with those twisting antlers- in the same woodsy gold. The opposite quarter held Amaranthine's bear.

"I asked Velanna if the Dalish clans had heraldry," Nathaniel said. "She said they didn't have much use for it, but most Dalish who go out in the world and end up needing a symbol use a halla."

"This is good work," Theron said, running a hand over the shield. His fingers lingered on the halla. "Wade?"

"Yeah."

"We, um," Sigrun said. "Owed him a challenge for some other work he did."

That sounded like another story.

"The Wardens plaster griffons on everything," Oghren said. "So we figured you should have something that ain't all blue-and-white-and-feathery."

"Thank you," Theron said, settling the shield across his back. "All of you. For this, and for making sure I had something to come back to."

"You gave _us_ somewhere," Nathaniel told him. "We couldn't do any less."


End file.
